Along came a birdy
by Illuse
Summary: Nightwing falls into the life of a young nurse, and she must set everything aside to nurse him back to health.
1. Chapter 1

I hate Friday's. They're long and exhausting and they can never come fast enough.

On Fridays my shift at Gotham general ends early, but it's also one of the busiest days of the week. I work the emergency room floor so I already see the worst of the worst, but for some reason Fridays are always the worst. Maybe it's because people start their partying early in the morning, and by noon they've been wheeled in with alcohol poisoning, and I get the wonderful job of pumping their stomach.

Every Friday night, after all our shifts end all the nurses and orderlies go out drinking, then spend the following Saturday sleeping off their hangovers and enjoying the time they have to themselves. To be honest, there's not much else to do in Gotham. I've been invited along a few times, but it's not really my cup of tea. I'm not legal anyways, so it wasn't much fun. Besides, Gotham's subway system is not where I want to be at God knows when in the morning. Hell, I don't like the subway at 2 in the afternoon. I'd much rather spend my Friday evening in my pajamas, curled up with a good book.

Someone bumps me from behind and I realize my train is here. It actually has been for a couple of seconds, but the person behind me has just now nudged me to get me out of their way. Nodding an apology, I step forward into the tube and flatten my back to the opposite door, swinging my purse in front of me as I do so. I've been pick pocketed before, so now I'm always sure to be extra careful. I don't keep anything in my coat pockets and I fold both my arms over my closed purse while I'm in transit. Sometimes people look at me strangely, but I don't mind. Better safe than sorry right?

Four or five other people board, all in varying degrees of undress from their winter coats and jackets. Two men in business suits and trench Coats settle down in the seats to my left, a woman in patterned leggings and a thick suede coat bustles off to the end of the train, and a young man with black hair and sleek headphones moves down by the other door and doesn't sit, even though there's plenty of open seats.

He piques my interest, but I'm not quite sure why. He's enjoying his music, I can tell by the way he's bobbing his head and bouncing his toe. While I'm looking at him he suddenly hammers out an air-drum solo and I can't help but smile. He seems happy. It's pretty rare to see his kind of people on the trains here. Usually everyone is silent and taught and grim looking and determined not to let their lives intersect with anyone else's.  
Just as the train doors are closing one more person slides in. Immediately, everyone stiffens a little. We can all see it, he looks like trouble.

His spine is curved into a permanent C shape from years of slouching, and he's uncomfortably thin looking. His clothes are worn and dirty and hang off of him like old rags. As the train lurches into motion he sidles to the bench opposite from me and plops down. His arms flop out at his sides and he almost seems to melt a little, so that he's taking up two seats at least. His head rocks back as he suddenly becomes fascinated by the overhead light. The uneasiness in the air doesn't lessen. It probably won't until he gets off, or everyone else does. I catch myself hugging my purse a little closer, and it makes me feel a little guilty.

He's probably just a junkie, and as it stands he's not hurting anyone. I don't know his story. I don't know where he came from, or how he got here. He could just as easily be in my position, as I could be in his.

I suddenly have the urge to give him some money, but I feel like doing so would be patronizing.

Suddenly he makes a loud rasping sound, and his head jerks forward. Everyone in the car stiffens again, probably thinking "Oh god, what's he doing now?"

At first I think he's choking on something, as he's pounding his chest with a closed fist. I'm about to go help him when he hauls up and spits a giant black loogie onto the already disgusting floor.

Oh. Well, maybe I won't give him any money.

The rest of the ride is twice as uncomfortable as before, something I didn't even know was possible. The businessmen hurry off three stops before mine, and I haven't seen the woman in the suede coat since she got on. For all I know, she moved to a different car and got off from there. The young man with the headphones is still here, still standing against one of the vertical poles, still bopping his head to his music. The junkie is still here too.

As my stop approaches, I start reorganizing my belongings. It's much warmer in the station than it is on the streets, so I had draped my thick wool coat over my arm, comfortable enough in just my scrubs. But the platform for my neighborhood spits you right out onto the sidewalk where the temperature is much lower. I'd rather not endure the chill so I usually rebundle before I get off the train.

As I swing my bag back around I catch the junkies eye for a second. A shudder shoots down my neck like a crescent of ice down my shirt.

He's staring at me. Like, directly at me. I don't know how long he has been, but when I look away he doesn't.

Ok, maybe he's just zoned out? And he's not actually looking at me? To test the theory I take a few shuffling steps to my left. His recessed eyes follow me, and as I glance nervously back at him a reptilian grin sweeps across his face.

Oh shit. This could be bad.

My station arrives, announced over the unintelligible as ever loudspeakers, and by the dot matrix banner running just above the double doors. My blood is rushing around in my head so loud I barely hear the screeching brakes as the train shudders into the station. I'm hoping, praying that he's just a weird guy, that he won't actually follow me off the train.

The doors slide open with a hissing release of air. I dash forward and as I cross the cabin the junkie pops up out of his seat and swings around the column. Christ. He's trying to block me from getting off. I side step him, trying to sidle out of the way before the doors close. He shuffles closer, still flashing a sick smile in my direction, and raises an arm with fingers outstretched.

Before I even have time to duck away, something slams into me from behind and a dark flash streaks past my side. I find myself being hurried forward and out onto the platform by a pressure in the small of my back that feels strangely like a hand. Startled and confused, I stumble to a halt against a tiled support column, and as I glance back over my shoulder the train screeches away, the junkie pressed against the closed doors with a puzzled expression.

What just happened?

I sweep my gaze away from the now empty tracks and just catch a familiar dark shape vaulting over a station bench. It's headphone boy, sprinting off perhaps to catch his own train. As I watch him go, I come to a realization that makes me blush a little.

I definitely felt a hand on my back, and someone definitely pushed me off the train. Whoever that guy is, he may have just saved me from a very unsavory evening.

From the station, it's a ten minute walk to my apartment complex. It sits just on the outer rim of Gotham's gentrified area, an essential asteroid belt of tall, thick buildings, speckled with street level convenience and grocery stores. It's not a bad area, but it's not the best either. There's a few robberies every couple of weeks, but there hasn't been a murder since many years before I was born. It's a quaint area for the price I pay, a nice balance of cheap and safe. The sidewalks are lined with twiggy ornamental trees and short, square bushes. Most of the actual apartments stand above street level, sitting atop a foundation of grocers, florists, and more than a few consignment stores. There's a trash can on every corner, and a miniscule park another three blocks in the opposite direction.

A frigid blast of air whips past my legs just as I reach the corner my building stands on. I don't shiver, I'm used to the cold. The weather's pretty much always like this in Gotham, icy currents blowing off the nearby ocean.

Maybe I should take a vacation to metropolis this summer, I bet it's not this cold there.

I pass the façade of the laundromat that is the bottom floor and turn down the alleyway between my building and the neighboring one. It's well lit, bathed in a thick yellow light from the row of six or seven lamps on either side of the building entrance and as I approach the door my body casts a dark circle beneath me. The outer door is unassuming, something you'd walk right past if you didn't know it was there. It's a large steel rectangle set back among the bricks, with heavy rivets and industrial hinges. I fish my keys out of the pocket of my scrubs and shake the ring until the right key fell into my palm.

The tumblers fall into place with an echoing clunk and I pull it open just a little, enough that I can slip inside. Just beyond the outer door is a tiny foyer, also brightly lit by an overhead lamp, the walls papered in a gaudy yellow and orange stripe. I move across the entryway to a second glass paneled door and unlock that as well, passing quickly through it.

Now entering the main entryway, I pass the grimy wall of mailboxes and the locked as always door labeled "building manager". The walls in this room are painted in the same ugly stripe, the ceiling a cracking, water-stained cream. It always smell's a little strange in the hall, and I've got a sneaking suspicion that there's mold somewhere. My white nursing shoes squeak on the concrete floor when I walk, but the elevator is carpeted and they make no sound when I step inside.

My apartment is on the 21st floor, way at the end of the hallway. Tracing the ugly squiggle patterns in the carpet with my toes as I walk, I swing my leg out to my sides, trying to only step on one color.

My keys hit the lock, and I'm flopped face down on my couch before the door has even swung shut.

"Awwww man…" I whisper to myself and my empty apartment. It's been a long day and I'm tired as hell. Still lying face down, I kick off first one shoe, then the other by hooking my toes in and then flicking them away. One smacks into the fridge, and the other bounces off around a corner. My couch is small, like the rest of the apartment, but right now it feels like a queen size bed.

Just a ten-minute nap, I tell myself, and before the words have faded away I'm fast asleep.

I'm awoken by the clanging of my landline. It's a weird phone, came with the apartment, and for some reason it always starts off quiet, then jumps to ridiculously loud seconds later. I'm tempted to ignore it, to just smash my face deeper into the cushion and go back to sleep, but it's too loud and I can't block it out. I rock up off the couch and answer it.

It's a recorded message, propaganda for the local mayoral race. Irritated, I hang up the phone with a loud groan. Scratching my scalp, I pad over to my fridge. The electric clock on the microwave reads 9:30.

Crap. I slept way longer than I meant to. Well, I guess it can't be helped. I pop open the fridge with one hand and pull my hair out of its low ponytail with the other and twist it around my fingers. My fridge is sparse at the moment. There's only a jug of milk, a few packages of deli meat all in varying degrees of emptiness, various condiments, and a few other things. Stepping back, I flick the door shut again and lean against the counter. I'm almost out of bread, and I've got no eggs. I let my head fall back and my hair slips over my shoulders. I really don't want to go out again, but I'm also really not in the mood for cereal for the fifth time this week. I'd meant to pick up groceries on the way home, but honestly I forgot with all the commotion on the train.

As if to persuade me, my stomach growls loudly. "Fine!" I tell my ceiling, "I'll go!"

I track down my sneakers and stick my feet back in them without untying the laces, then grab my coat once again, deciding at the last moment to snag a scarf and beanie before slipping back out into the cold.

I walk briskly down the street, swinging the flimsy plastic bag of groceries in my right hand. The tiny grocer had been deserted, only my squeaking footsteps and the twangy pop tune playing over the radio. I picked up a can of tea, some bread and a couple cans of soup, and oddly enough, a box of gauze bandages and a few other first aid must haves. My own supply had been recently raided by my cat, and I'd come home last Wednesday to find my fat maine coon mummified on the bathroom floor.  
As a nurse, I like to be medically prepared for something to go wrong. I know firsthand just how expensive hospitals can be, so I always try to do what I can at home. Cuts, scrapes, probably even a sprain are things I can handle on my own. I've never needed to go to the ER before, and I don't plan on it anytime soon.  
I cross a small cross street and hop up on the curve, taking a few more steps before turning down a thin alley that shortcuts straight to my street.

I've walked this way for months, ever since the city cleared out a big pile of rubble left by construction. It's safe, though it might not look like it. Now it's lined with dumpsters, each firmly closed with thick plastic lids and chained shut. It's dark, the only light provided by a few flickering lamps, most of which went dead many years ago. The air funnels between the buildings and blasts the stink into my face. _Oh my god._

The stink is ten times worse than usual. Maybe the butcher's shop up the street threw out some particularly rank meat. I pull my hand back into my sleeve and push the cloth up over my nostrils. It makes my face feel sweaty, but it's better than the alternative. I hurry through the narrow passage way, eager to get away from the stink as fast as possible.

Suddenly, a booming crash explodes in my ears. It's louder than anything I've ever heard, the sheer impact reverberating through the air in my chest cavity. I scream before I realize it, and duck sideways flinging my arms up in protection. It has to be an explosion. It's got to be a bomb, or another one of those crazy disasters that seem to happen so often in this city. My shoulder hits the brick wall of the alley, and I slide down to a crouch, hands over my head, trembling in fear. Something wet splatters across my cheek.

 _Oh my god, Oh my god._

The clanging sound echoes its way up the buildings and fades away. There's a few more scratching pops, and creaking sounds but then everything is silent again. I want to look. I want to peek so bad but I'm terrified to move. Every bad news report I've ever seen is flashing through my head. _Just stay down, stay hidden_. So I stay folded into a ball, huddled in the gutter.

After what feels like a million years I finally build up the guts to lift my arms enough to look under them, my heart beating so loud it feels like it's shaking the very ground I'm standing on. I half expect to see a giant crater, but reality is pretty underwhelming.

One of the dumpster lids is broken and buckled, the edges curled up from some unseen weight pressing down at its center. There's something sticking out over the edge, long, dark, and thin. It looks like a pipe or something.

I glance upwards, one hand flattened on my chest, my heart still aflutter beneath my fingertips. _Did an ac unit fall?_

But then the ac unit moves. And swears.

A young man pulls himself up and over the edge of the dumpster, swinging up first his leg, then the rest of his body slithering after. He hits the ground with an audible splat, and another swear. In the warped yellow light, he looks strange, like some subterranean creature crawling out of its den. Something shimmers on his back, it looks wet and sticky. He's wearing a dark hooded sweater, but his pants are tight to his skin like a catsuit.

I take a step forward, my gut roiling with a volatile combination of concern, curiosity, horror and confusion. Questions are blasting across my mind like the banner that runs across the bottom of the news, faster than I can process them.

 _Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Did he seriously fall? And what am I supposed to do?_

In a city like gotham, with the Batman, and a smorgasbord of costumed villains, it's not unusual for strange things to happen on occasion. But not in this part of town. Not to me. Hell, I've never even seen the Batman.

"Fuck me-" The strange man says. His voice is somehow different than I expected, boyish and clear, yet at the same time murky and muddled with pain and exhaustion. He curls up, pushes up onto his palms and knees, his back cowed between his raised shoulders.

I'm staring too much. I know I am.

The shadow beneath him is wrong. It's directly below him, even though the nearest overhead light is off to our side. As I'm looking at it, slowly, it changes shape, poking out in odd, amoeboid ways.

A car drives by and the alley is flooded with a flash of white light. The spotlight pans across him for only a split second, but it's long enough for my thick skull.

The realization hits me like a truck.

He's bleeding. Like a lot. What I thought was just nasty water from the alley floor is actually blood, streaming down between his shoulder blades and smeared across the back of his neck. The dark fabric of his sweater is torn in a few places, pale skin and crimson blood peeking through from underneath. The jacket itself is twisted and hiked up around his waist.

In medical school, one of my professors spoke about a particular moment. A moment when you have to make a choice that can affect whether someone lives or dies. Sometimes it's obvious, glaring, the kind that stares you right in the face. Sometimes you have to go looking for it. I remember being inspired, going up to the professor after class and shaking his hand. I thought I knew what he meant.

But now here I am. Cowering in a dark, dirty back ally, staring at a completely different kind of moment.

Whether this guy lives or not might hinge on what I do in the next few minutes. It's all going to hinge on me.

 _Christ. Here we go._

My grocery bag hits the ground and spills over onto its side, cans rolling in a few different directions. I'm by his side in five seconds.

"Hey, are you alright?" No matter how hard I try to sound professional, I can't keep the nervous crack out of my voice.

He shakes his head, swats at me with his left hand like he's shooing away a bug. The motion puts him off balance and he teeters off to his right, one knee popping up off the ground. Startled, I reach out and grab him, pull him back towards me. I'm expecting him to simply right himself, but instead he collapses into my lap in a heap. His head hits my shoulder and rolls down into the crook of my elbow. He's heavy. Warm. I can feel his blood soaking into my shirt, feel it running down the arm holding his head.

Feeling his blood switches something on inside me. It's the same feeling I get when someone is wheeled into the ER. It's go time.

"Hey, hey, hey!" I shout in his ear as I cup his head as gently as I can, shaking his shoulder with my other hand. There is no response, but a faint moan. My fingers find his neck and press into the vein, counting each beat. Its slow, but it's there.

Slowly, I roll him down so that he's lying on his back with his head resting on my knees and pull my scarf out from under my collar and wad it up. I scan his body, looking for the source of the blood but it's hard to tell in the dim light and with his dark clothes. I take a guess and press my scarf against his upper left stomach.

Immediately he stiffens under the pressure, drawing a sharp breath in over his teeth. I think I guessed right.

"Everything is going to be alright, I'm here to help you." I smile down at him with my best bedside face. At the same time, I reach back into my pocket without breaking eye contact and feel for my cell phone. "Can you tell me what happened to you?"

He groans loudly and raises a hand to his forehead, making a sound like he's getting up off a couch. "Christ…He's going to be pissed…" He whispers in a hoarse voice.

I ignore him and hold my phone out in front of me in an attempt to get service. "You're going to be alright, I'm calling an ambulance-"

"No!" Suddenly my phone isn't in my hand, and I'm sprawled on my back on the dirty alley floor and he's lying on top of me. His heart is pounding heavily against my chest, his labored breath hot on my neck.

I'm stunned. Hot blush flares across my cheeks and my heart flutters with embarrassment and surprise. I don't think it was an attack, but my brain is immediately leaping to the worst case scenario.

His head pops up, his chin digging into my solar plexus, and much to my surprise, he smiles. It's the first time I've seen his face clearly. It's kind, genuine, and more than a little handsome. It's not the kind of face I'd attach to this kind of situation. His eyes are a striking blue, piercing in the dim light. They seem familiar somehow, but I can't quite place—

 _Oh my god._

My brain takes his face and superimposes it over the blurry corresponding memory I have of him, standing on the train with his headphones, tapping his foot and drumming in the air. The last time I saw him, he was sprinting away into the substation, waving over his shoulder. And now he's lying in my lap, possibly bleeding to death.

"S-Sorry…" He says, flashing straight, white teeth. His voice has a breathy undertone and the words sound like they're taking a considerable effort to get out. "A hospital visit just doesn't fit into my schedule right now."

A thought I hadn't had before suddenly pops into my head. A reason why someone would wind up bleeding in a dumpster next to a high rise, and a reason why that person would not want to be taken to a hospital afterwards. The suspicion creeps up my spine, but I'm not quite sure how to ask him.

"You didn't, you know… from up there-"

"I didn't jump, if that's what you're asking." He smiles again, rolls his head onto his cheek and laughs softly into my shirt.

Seconds later he's coughing. It's a horrible, shuddering, wet sound, sending tremors down his whole body. His knee's draw inwards, his head sliding across my chest as he curls into himself in pain.

I push up onto my elbows, desperate to do something for him, anything. "You need a doctor! Why don't you want to go to the hospital?!" I'm shouting now, irritated and confused.

His hand bursts forward and clamps down on my shoulder, and I can't help but flinch. His grip is surprisingly strong, but more pleading than threatening.

"Please- cough- No hospital…" He's begging now, his face buried in my coat, one arm clamped across his lower abdomen. I can feel a warm wetness growing around where his head is. I know what that is, but I don't want to think about it.

"But-"

"Please… Gotta… trust me-"

Then suddenly his voice cuts out, the pressure is gone, and his hand is sliding down to rest on my collarbone. It's silent, except for the distant rumble of a passing car, and the hummingbird thumping of my own heart.

Crazy. This is crazy. This can't really be happening.

I don't know what he wants me to do, but there's no way I'm just going to let him bleed out here. Carefully, I slide him off of me and roll him over onto his back once again, pulling up his hoodie and replacing my scarf over his bloodstained stomach. His head rolls limply, and one arm slides down, falling just beside my hip. I plant one hand on the dirty asphalt and reach across him, stretching for my phone to call 911. As my eyes pass over his chest, I suddenly decide to unzip his sweater and adjust my positioning of my scarf. I whip the zipper down and flick apart the two halves of fabric so that I can see what condition his chest is in. As I scan upwards, my eyes snag on something that they hadn't before. Something that sends my brain into a tailspin.

 _Holy shit_.

No wonder he doesn't want me to take him to the hospital.

In a slightly lighter grey than the rest of his clothes, sweeping down over the tops of his shoulders to meet in the center of his chest, is an all too familiar symbol. It's a symbol I haven't seen in at least three years.

The symbol of the Nightwing.


	2. Chapter 2

I jab the elevator button at least 50 times before I hear the electric pulley's whir into motion. The very second that the doors open I shoot inside, dragging him in with me. The entire ride I'm going crazy, praying that no one gets on, that there's no one in the hallway when I get there. Nightwing is slung over my shoulder, with one arm hooked up around my neck and my hand on his waist. He's barely conscious, leaning all of his weight against me. I can feel his chest expand and contract as he wheezes heavily.

I had given him my coat, cinched my scarf around his stomach and buttoned it up the front in an attempt to hide the blood that streaked his clothes. I definitely don't want someone else to get suspicious and call an ambulance on their own. Hell, I'm still debating calling one myself.

The doors open with a cheerful ding, and I hoist him up once again. I can hear him gasp quietly at the sudden pressure, and I feel a sharp twang of guilt.

"Sorry, hang on just a little longer!" I whisper apologetically and set off quickly down the hallway. Even as I take the first step off the conveyance my heart starts pounding all over again.

Halfway down the corridor my worst fears are confirmed. There's someone loitering in the hallway in front of my door, one hand in their pocket and the other up against their head. As I get closer, I recognize the person. It's my neighbor David, an engineering student whose taking classes at Gotham's technical university, along with a few online courses. I rarely ever see him, except for when he's leaning out the window to smoke. Of course, this had to be the day for him to get a social life.

He turns and waves, and I realize that I'm staring at him like a maniac. With considerable effort, I force a smile and pull my eyes back into my head. As I walk towards him, I pull my hand back from Nightwing's hip and shove it down into my purse, digging desperately for my keys.

It's taking every ounce of my strength to keep my face flat, while inside every curse word I've ever heard is blasting across my brain. Is he going to notice the blood? Will he freak out? What am I supposed to do if he does? I feel like I should say something but I haven't a clue what.  
Every step we take brings us closer, and the volume of my panic cranks up a notch. When there's barely six feet between us David looks up with an exasperated expression and gesture.  
I suddenly realize he's on the phone. He covers the mouthpiece with a hand and mouths the words "my mom" with a sheepish smile.  
I'm almost there. My door is within reach. My keys are in my hand, stretching out, zooming towards the lock like a heat seeking missile.  
But then...  
"Hey, is he ok?"  
I freeze, every muscle in my body frozen solid in sheer bloody panic. My neck creaks around, and I look back at him over my shoulder with as un-horrified an expression as I can manage.  
He's still got a hand over the speaker, but he now wears a concerned furrow instead of an amused smile.  
"Ah, uh... Oh yeah, he's fine!" I say, way too loudly and way too high pitched. There's a wheel of fortune spinning in my head, and I'm praying it'll land on a good excuse. "He just, uh... Drank too much!"  
David's face takes a second to change, and in that second I go through every emotion known to man. But then he nods his head in approval and takes a few steps back. As I slip inside my door, he puts his pinky to his lips and mimes drinking, at the same time mouthing the words "hit me up some time".  
The door closes, and immediately a million pounds of stress float off my shoulders. Two seconds later it all slams back down when I remember I've got a bleeding superhero under my arm.  
I'm in my bedroom before I have time to worry about it. That's the best way to do what I do. Don't think about what you're doing, about what it'll mean if you fail. Don't worry, don't fear, don't feel. Be a textbook following robot, it's the best way to ensure you and your patient survive.

Taking a fistful of sheets, I rip my bed down to the fitted sheet before laying night wing down. If I had the choice, I'd really like to get some trash bags or something under him, but I don't have the time for that. He's lost way too much blood for me to waste time now.

I sprint through the flat, grabbing everything in sight that I might be able to use. Upon return I dump it all on the bed right next to him and survey my meager supplies.

Shit. I've got pretty much nothing. A lot of gauze, a couple of bandage rolls, my basic first aid kit, some rubber cleaning gloves and a sewing needle and thread. Thank god I decided to pick up some supplies at the convenience store, or I'd have even less.

Swearing out loud this time, I slam two fingers against his neck to check for pulse. 1...2...3...shit...4...5...fuck...6...

I grab the gloves and dash off to the bathroom, whip my hair up into what I'm sure is a disaster of a bun, scrub my hands so hard they turn an angry red, then shove them into the gloves and scrub some more.

On my way out I fill my arms with towels.

Back in the bedroom, I can feel the panic creeping back in. The tempo of my own heart is jittery, like a motor cycle in low gear, and the muscles across the back of my shoulders are beginning to tighten back up.

I close my eyes and take a gasp of air, gulping down until my lungs can't hold any more. The scents of blood and sweat and grime slap the back of my throat but I drink it all down anyway.

What I'm about to do could either kill someone, or save their life. It's all in my hands.  
I open my eyes and look down at Nightwing where he lays. There's tension in his face, even though he's unconscious I can tell he's hurting. His Raven black hair is stuck to the blood smeared across his forehead, pooled out on the bare mattress below his head.

He's counting on me. He's trusting me.

All right, here we go.

I start as I would with any patient, stripping off his clothing so that I can see what I'm dealing with. The sweater comes off easily, but it's what's underneath that poses a problem. I hook a finger under the high collar of his jumpsuit and pull it up enough to slip the blade of my scissors underneath. It's extremely difficult to cut, no doubt made of some kind of protective fabric, but I don't have time to look for a zipper so I keep hacking away. Right about at the center of his chest I give up on the scissors and resort to just ripping, gripping the cloth with both hands and pulling with everything I've got. I leave his bottoms on, content to just feel down his legs for any swelling or blood. I don't find anything, and I don't really want to find out if he's wearing underwear or not. So, I move on.

Next, I attack the sleeves until I can free his arms. Finally finished, I toss away the scraps of fabric and take a quick survey.

I count three gunshots, one graze on his right arm, another in his left shoulder, and the third in his upper abdomen just under his ribcage. He's covered in a bevy of scratches and bruises, and when I brush back his hair I find a head wound still slowly oozing blood. But that's just what I can see from the outside.

Next I feel around as best as I can, trying to pretend I have x-ray vision as I run my fingers across his body. I'm not looking for anything specific, I'm looking for everything at once. _Damn, I've gotten complacent._ I'm so used to having X-rays and cat scans, and MRI's that tell me exactly what I'm looking at and how bad it is. I'm flying blind here. All I've got are my hand's and my intuition. It's terrifying, but I'd be lying to myself if I didn't admit it's at least slightly exhilarating.

 _Ok, step 1. Disinfect_.

With a wet cloth first, I scrub off as much blood as I can, ignoring the giddy fangirl squealing about how muscular he is in the back of my mind. Then I slap an alcohol wipe across each and every abrasion on his body, taking extra care to pick every piece of dirt and asphalt out of the wounds.

 _Step two, stop the bleeding._

The cut on his forehead is shallow and short, much less dire than it looks, but head wounds tend to bleed a lot. I go over it one more time with a wipe, then slap a large band aid over it and move on. It's not the injury I'm most worried about.

The graze on his shoulder doesn't worry me much either. It's shallow too, deep enough to hit muscle but not bone. I pinch the wound together and throw a few stitches in, being sure to sanitize the needle with a vigorous rub with a cleansing wipe. _Jesus, the others would kill be if they saw me using a sewing needle and thread to suture._

Still pinching the skin together, I glob some antibiotic ointment down and then tape down a gauze pad over the whole thing, using a slightly ridiculous amount of tape.

Ok, on to the ones that worry me.

His upper left shoulder has a neat little hole in it, a dark, angry red in the wound, and a startling greyish purple mottling on the skin around it. Even though I wiped it clean not two minutes ago, there's already a thin river of blood trickling down into his armpit. Because the entry wound is so neat, I get the feeling there's an exit hole as well. A bullet traveling fast enough to pierce flesh that cleanly wouldn't have much problem finding its way out.

But still, I've got to check.

Awkwardly, I clamber up on the bed and table over him, reaching both hands under his shoulders. As quickly as I can, I lift him off the mattress just enough to slip my hand under and feel for the other hole. He cries out in pain, startling me, and I drop him back down onto my now-bloodstained mattress. He groans again, his head rolling on strained neck muscles and his face all screwed up, but after a few seconds the tension releases and he's out again.

I check his pulse again, having a slight difficulty differentiating his heartbeat from my own. He's alright. I'm sure he didn't appreciate the rough handling, but I got what I needed to know. Moving on.

I prod the muscle around the hole with gentle fingertips. The skin is turgid, swollen feeling. I frown to myself, tutting aloud before I realize it. Playing upward, I feel along his collarbone, pressing, squeezing, trying my damnest to check for fractures. Nothing feels out of place, and although the area is swollen and bruised and generally horrible looking, his arm still moves smoothly if I rotate it.

I make the call that the bullet must have passed between bones, and hit only muscle and tendon. If I lean close and put my ear against his chest I can hear his lungs inflate normally. Hopefully, they really are as fine as they sound, and I'm not just missing something. Self-doubt rears up hearing its name, but I tamp it down with a few hard swallows, and move on.

I cleanse the area again, tossing the spent cloth over my shoulder. Again, I suture the small hole shut, slather it with antibiotic gel, and press a thick gauze pad over it. Still clamping the gauze down with my left hand, I reach under and pull his body up until he's lying on his other side. From this angle I can get at both sides of the wound, but if I let go of him for even a moment he flops back over like a dead fish. So, I hunch over him, looking like a participant in the world's worst game of twister, holding him propped against my knee and trying to suture with one hand.

When I'm finally content that I've sealed the wound from both sides, I press another patch of gauze against the stiches. Using my other knee to hold it in place, I twist like a contortionist, stretching out my fingers until I can grab a hold of one of the ace bandages. When its within my grasp, I tear off the plastic wrapping with my teeth and whip it around his shoulder, pulling it as tight as I can and anchoring it under his armpit.

Gently, I ease him over onto his back, with one hand under his neck supporting his head. When he's settled, I lean back on my knees and take a deep breath.

 _Holy shit, this is harder than I thought it would be._ My back is aching, and I can feel beads of sweat rolling down between my shoulder blades. My mattress feels damp under my knees, likely from the sweat pouring off his body. _But, I can't stop. I've got to keep-_

 _Fuck._

 _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck._

 _I've screwed up big time._

The dampness in the mattress isn't sweat. It's blood.


	3. Chapter 3

"Shit!"

I'm panicking, doing exactly what I've always been told not to do. My brain is spiraling into a disaster zone, everything about everything is going wrong.

I'd been so focused on his shoulder wound. I didn't pay attention; I wasn't careful enough. I must have aggravated the hole in his stomach when I flipped him up onto his side. _I should have known better._

I don't have to move him again to know that this wound is a through and through as well, if the bullet was still inside the blood would be pooling inside him instead of all over my mattress. It looks terrible from the front too. The flesh is jagged and torn in a roughly circular shape, with creeping rips radiating out like spider's legs. It's pouring blood, kaleidoscoping through a wide range of terrible colors before my eyes.

He's slipping. Blood is seeping out across my mattress and thick rubies of it are rolling down the sides of his muscular abdomen. The color is draining away from his face, dark patches hollowing around his eyes, and he's getting colder by the second. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his pulse is languid, sluggish, barley even there. His chest heaves as he struggles to draw breath.

I realize that I'm shouting. Every curse word under the sun is exploding across my brain and out of my mouth. For a brief moment I wonder if my neighbors can hear me, but my attention zeroes back in on Nightwing when he coughs a horrifying mouthful of dark blood onto his chest and across my legs. Spasms grip his body, then he gurgles loudly and falls still again. Crimson blood streams from the corners of his mouth.

 _Fuckfuckfuckthatsbad-_ I'm grabbing anything I can reach and slamming them into his stomach, trying desperately to sop up the blood. T-shirt after dish towel flies over my shoulder and lands with a wet plop on my floor, throwing splatters up my walls. It's bubbling up between my fingers, running down the sides of his body and pooling in the hollow his weight is making in the mattress. It's on my shirt, on my pants, my face, my hands. I can taste it in the air.

"Hey, hey hey!" I slap his face, not nearly as gentle as I had been earlier but I'm desperate. "Don't you fucking dare! Do you hear me? Don't you dare die on me!" His head rolls away from the impact, limp and grey. A thick line of red traces down his chin and snakes around to the back of his neck.

I can't think, my brain is stalling. When I try to think of what to do all I can do is grasp at straws. There's nothing there. Years of medical school, encyclopedias of knowledge all dissolved away like smoke before a fan. I want to cry. All I can do is stare at the blood squishing up between my fingers. I'm panicked. Terrified that I'll be single handedly responsible for the death of one of Gotham's saviors. Of my savior.

I can't breathe. My head hurts. The world around me is spiraling and blurring. It's too much. This is too much.

 _He's gonna die._

Suddenly, something kicks in. It's like a breaker switch has flipped on in my head. All emotion drains out of me and it feels like I'm being sucked backwards, up and away from both his body and mine. I'm watching from above, like I'm standing in the gallery observing a surgery, watching from above. It's easier. Simpler. I'm watching someone else.

Its someone else.

Someone else seems to know what she's doing. Someone else moves quickly, checking and prodding, moving like a seasoned pro. She packs gauze, stitches, all while keeping pressure. Her hands fly across his body faster than I can follow from my seat in the sky. It seems like forever that I watch this stranger work on him, awed by her calm expertise. She finishes by wrapping the other bandage tightly around him, lifting his body and passing the roll under in quick, gentle motions and securing it with agile fingers. She rocks back, places her palm on her knees and takes a deep breath, her shoulders raising then dropping down. I'm impressed with her. Admiring even, at how she was able to keep so calm in such an intense situation.

She throws her head back and looks up at me. Our eyes lock, and I feel myself being sucked back through the mirror, back into my own body. As my feet slip back into my shoes all the sensations rush back like high tide and it's almost too much. I feel my hands on my face and I realize that I'm holding my head. My face is hot and wet, and it's hard to breathe.

 _Oh…_ That's never happened before.

My hands move on their own, flattening themselves against his chest. I can feel each dragging breath through his ribcage, each heartbeat like an earthquake beneath my fingers. I take a deep breath myself and straighten my spine for the first time in hours. My vertebrates pop and crack all down my back; it feels amazing to stretch.

My room looks like a warzone. There's bloody towels, shirts, and wads of gauze scattered across the floor, the sheets piled in an avalanche by the foot of the bed. The bottom two feet of my walls are splattered with impact spray. The mattress itself is marred by the enormous crimson lake in its center, and the medical supplies and wrappers strewn across the bed like somber confetti.

He's lost a lot of blood. Like an obscene amount. Looking around and seeing how much is splattered around the room makes me a little nauseous.

You can die from blood loss any day of the week. I'm not in a hospital, I can't give him a transfusion. Hell, I don't even know what blood type he is. I can't give him any antibiotics; I can't even wake him up to have him drink water. There's almost nothing I can do with the resources I have here. The best thing I can do for him now is keep him from going into shock. Unfortunately, he's already showing the symptoms.

His skin is clammy to the touch, and I can tell he's struggling to breathe. His chest is heaving rapidly, his expression is twisted with discomfort and he's drenched in a cold sweat, his skin tone a frightening slate color. The tell-tale shivers are starting, and with them my heart starts to buzz again. I check his pulse for the million and third time. It's weak, but jittery and fluttering.

I really want to change the mattress, but there's no way I'm moving him now. I need to keep him warm and relaxed until I can figure something else out.

I zip to the bathroom with an armful of bloody towels and dump them into the bathtub, then grab a roll of trash bag's from under the sink and jog back. Painstakingly slowly, I ease the thin plastic between Nightwing's sleeping body and my ruined mattress. It takes forever, and every time I jostle him, every time he moans in pain, my heart stops. Every muscle in my body hurts from being clenched with stress. When I've finished situating the bags, I retrieve the sheets from the floor and throw them over his body. I leave his head unsupported, but shove a few pillows under his legs to elevate his feet and help with blood flow.

My floor is finally clear, and there's at least five layers of blankets tucked tightly around him. I'm in overkill mode, but it doesn't hurt to be more careful. He's still cold to the touch, and his shivering is getting more and more severe as time goes by.

Suddenly an idea pops into my head. My heavy-soled shoes slap loudly on the laminate flooring as I search the apartment for the ball of fur I know as the little radiator he is. In exchange for such low rent in a decent part of time, I put up with the terrible heating in the building. The cooling is great, there's never any problem with the AC, but in the winter it often doesn't get much higher than 60 in my apartment. As such, I invested in thick quilts and throw blankets, and I've slept many a night cuddling with my fat cat Slinky for heat.

I figure if it works for me, it'll work for him.

Slinky is sleeping on top of the fridge, and is not enthralled when I drag him down and haul him away under my arm. He squirms halfheartedly and squawks at me, hooking his claws into my scrubs and pushing me away, but I ignore him, return to the bedroom and toss him onto the bed.

He startles, flags his tail and bristles his fur down his back, hissing angrily at me over his shoulder. But when he notices there's someone in the bed, he instead becomes curious and flattens back out. At least as much as a main coon can. Slinky pads over and sniffs Nightwing's face, deciding whether he likes him or not. After a few moments, he meows approvingly and curls up against his side, fast asleep in seconds.

I can feel myself drooping, I'm exhausted, the kind of tired you feel in your bones. The kind that sinks in like cement and pulls at you until you give into sleep. _I guess I can start the clean up tomorrow…_ I take a few steps back from the bed, not quite sure what to do next.

Suddenly, it dawns on me that I might be making a mistake by letting him sleep. If he's got a concussion, which I suspect he does, sleeping is about the worst thing for him. A subdural hematoma is a bleed in the brain, and can cause rapid unconsciousness and death. I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between normal rest and the rapid downward spiral caused by hemorrhaging like that. The uncertainty twists in me like a knife. I rock on the balls of my feet, debating with myself over how to proceed. Personally, I want him to sleep. I want his body to have a chance to recover and heal, to replenish all of the blood it's lost. But, there's no way I'll be able to sit comfortably with that possibility weighing on me.

Just to be sure, I do my best to check him out for the signs of a head injury. But his pupils are responsive to light, and I can't seem to find any lumps on his scalp or forehead. By my best guess, I'd say he probably doesn't have one, but now that I'm nervous I'll have to watch him like a hawk all night to be comfortable.

Setting up for a long night, I retrieve a chair from my desk and a pillow from the couch and plop them down next to the bed, close enough to the headboard that I can easily reach his wrist. Tucking my knees up around me, I curl up in the bony chair and let my hand fall naturally across Nightwing's arm. This way I can monitor his pulse passively while I watch him for any signs of deterioration.

Just for some background noise, I flip on the TV and turn it up loud. Thanks to the odd layout of my tiny apartment, I can easily see the TV from the end of my bed. The back of the couch blocks the bottom few inches of the screen, but I'm not really watching it so it doesn't matter. There's some action movie on, the perfect kind of mindless noise I need to drive the sleep away.

It works for a few hours, but even Michael Bay can't keep me awake all night, and before I know it my head is sinking towards the sheets. My forehead lands on the back of Nightwings hand and my eyes close, exhaustion finally taking me.

I wake up with a snort and a flinch, popping up off the mattress. Slinky bulges his eyes out and squawks out a surprised meow at my sudden spastic burst of motion.

The room is bright, bathed in the pale yellow light pouring in through my open window. The curtains are wide open; I guess I never closed them. It's much warmer than it had been last night, a comfortable 72 according to the thermostat, baked by the early morning sun.

I blink. My eyelids are heavy; my muscles sore and cramped all the way down my back. My head feels like it weighs a million pounds on my neck. There are red streaks on my arms from the folded sheets and where my head had been pressing down on the skin. The first thing I reach for, before I even look to see that he's still there, is Nightwing's hand.

The steady, strong pulse that I find is better than any birthday gift. His skin has warmed back up, no longer cold and clammy as it had been last night. I'm not quite awake enough yet to look around, but in my peripheral I can see his chest rising and falling gently as he breathes deeply and easily. _That's reassuring._

I grind my head around on my neck until I can see the purple alarm clock sitting on my nightstand. It shines the numbers 11:15 back at me.

 _Ugh…I hadn't meant to sleep this long._

My head creaks a little further to the left as I glance at Nightwing's face. He's still sweating, but only lightly now, and the slight pink flush has come back to his skin. I'm a little surprised at how fast he seems to be recovering. His face is relaxed, serene, his lips slightly parted as he breathes in and out softly. There's still a smear of dried blood gathered in the left corner of his mouth, but no new bleeding that I observe. A few strands of jet black hair have fallen back across his forehead. I brush them away with two fingers, letting them linger against his skin. He's a bit too warm, I note with a slight frown, I'll have to keep an eye on that. A fever would just be another thing I need to take care of.

Rocking up out of the hard wooden chair, I arch my back and stretch my arms up towards the ceiling. I let out a loud groan, and stretch my fingers up as high as I can reach. My spine sounds like popcorn in the microwave, but it feels oh so good. I swing my upper body down and grab my ankles, pulling my torso against my knees. I take a deep breath, hold it, then blow it out.

All the nurses have their own cycle of stretches they like to do between shifts to limber up. It's not unusual to walk into the tiny break room and catch two or three people doing yoga or push up's. No matter how thick your Dr. Scholl's inserts are, your back is still going to hurt like hell after standing for 13 hour's strait. Some of the receptionists sit on yoga balls instead of desk chairs, and if you ask nicely and sometimes bring them coffee they'll let you lay on them to stretch. As I lunge against the wall, I find myself wishing I had one of my own.

Comfortably limber, I begin my morning routine.

I scarf down a quick bowl of cheerios, then feed slinky his usual bowl of Wet cat food and kibble. When I drop it into its usual position beside the fridge, he refuses to leave the bed, instead meowing plaintively at me from his nest in the sheets. I meet him halfway and move the bowl into my bedroom, tucking it in the corner.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to look under the sheets without being hissed at by a jostled cat, I decide to check up on the bandages I'd put in place the night before. His arm looks fine, as does his shoulder. I can see the nasty purple blotch peeking out around the gauze pad, but that's to be expected. I'm more worried about bleeding and clotting. In the center of each bandage is a grape sized dark red blotch that is dry to the touch. _Good, good._ The stomach wound is a little more gruesome, with a much larger Rorschach-looking blob of bright crimson. When I prod it lightly, my fingertips come away just slightly stained. _Hmm, not so good._

But, the stain isn't growing, and the edges are dry. It's just in the center that the surgical cloth is still damp. _It's most likely due to the sheer volume of blood from the wound, that much would take a long time to dry and I had it all covered and warm._

I push the wavering concern aside and pull the quilts back up to his chin, tucking them back around him. Just as I do so, Slinky hops up and slides under my hand with a motion that begs for scratches. I give him what he wants, then move away and get to the cleanup while the fat cat curls up once again.

Thank god I've got wood paneled floors, or it would have been a nightmare trying to wipe it all up. With bleach, warm water, and a little elbow grease, the burgundy puddles and smears fade away, and eventually disappear. It's a little harder to get it off the walls. I go through a little of every cleaning product I've got, Windex, bleach, Swiffer refills, toilet bowl cleaner, everything. In a little over an hour my walls and floor are clean, and the air is thick with the sour aroma of bleach.

My eyes watering, I pop every window in the apartment and kick a standing fan into high gear, depositing it in my bedroom to blow the stink away from the sleeping young man.

Next is the part I'm _really_ not looking forward to. The night before, I had gathered up all of the bloody rags and dumped them into the tub, just to have somewhere to collect them. This morning, it too looks horrific. The moment I enter the bathroom, the heavy, sour stink of dried blood slaps me in the face.

I crank the faucet as far as it will go, giving the spigot a few good raps to goad the water out of the old pipes. A few deep gurgles later, the cold water comes spraying out, immediately turning a salmony pink when it hits the dried blood. I pour a half a container of dish soap over the wet mound, then finish it with a few splashes of vinegar. Lastly, I strip off my soiled scrubs, now stiff with dried blood, and add them to the swirling, bubbling broth before redressing.  
Returning to the bedroom, I find my cat and my guest both sleeping peacefully.  
I'm not quite sure what to do at this point. Usually on weekends I sit around and read, or watch serial dramas on my tiny TV. But this curveball has me feeling lost at sea. There's a million and one things I want to ask him, that I feel like I should be doing for him. My brain keeps throwing up sticky notes at me, "check his IV", "draw blood", "get him to x-Ray", and it's killing me that I can't do any of them because I'm not in a hospital. I feel listless and exposed, like I've gone for a walk and left my pants at home.  
It's uncomfortable. Not to mention the constant background terror that's whispering all the things that could go wrong in my ears.  
My head starts to buzz again, and I flatten my palms over my ears, like it'll make any difference. Oddly, it does.  
I take a deep, loud breath, letting my upper body deflate as the air leaves my lungs. It feels good down my back, and my hair swings down and pokes at my eyes, but not before I've noticed a few more drips of blood by the door. I straighten out and sigh again. More cleaning to do.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Hello everyone! Oh my lawd, I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update! I've been on summer break so I've been spending a lot of time with my family, so I haven't been writing much. But rest assured, there is a lot of new stuff coming, so thanks for sticking with me and waiting patiently! Thank you all so much and sorry again!**_

It's past four by the time Nightwing starts to wake up. His soft groan startles me enough that I jostle my book and knock it off my lap. The loud thud it makes when it hits the ground, startles slinky. His face twitches slightly, tightening around his eyes only momentarily. His lips part, and he takes in a slow, mechanical breath. Immediately my adrenaline spikes, my heart spluttering like a car engine off the block.

What's he going to say? What am _I_ going to say back?

His eyes crack open, then slide closed again as he lets out a loud groan. He stirs under the sheets, rolls his neck across the pillow and groans even louder. After a moment he goes silent again, and his head falls back into the hollow in the center of the pillow.

My hand darts out instinctively towards his wrist, but I catch myself and draw it back. Taking a moment to get over myself, I swallow, then reach out and fold both my hands around his, giving it a squeeze. He groans again, his head rolling back and his face scrunching up even more. The fingers on his hand twitch, then curl around mine and squeeze slightly. My heart flutters, and I shout at myself in my head that it's just a reflex as he wakes up, and to stop blushing like an idiot. His entire body tenses for a moment and I lose my breath. Then he relaxes and slumps back into the mattress, the plastic trash bags crinkling under him. His fingers relax in mine.

 _Damn…_ I feel like I'm about to explode with anticipation. The longest thirty seconds of my life ooze by. Then, his eyes creak open, just enough for me to see that brilliant blue. There's no mistaking it, those are the same blues I saw on the subway. A rush of awe blows through me; I haven't seen them in so long I've almost forgotten how bright they are. I've never seen anything like them. But despite their brilliance, they seem murkier than before, swimming with dark confusion and heavy exhaustion. They're much darker, like the ocean over a deep trench, so different from the teal shallows I'd seen in the alleyway.

He blinks and the blue disappears. I realize with a slight blush that his fingers have curled around mine once again.

He blinks again. Once. Twice. Each time clearing away the mental silt and growing to a sharper, brighter blue. They close one more time, lingering for a few extra seconds, before opening again and sliding in my direction. His face is slack, grey, exhausted. He squints at me for a moment, with his lips slightly parted, as if he means to say something but can't quite form the thought.

"You look like shit." I blurt out, then clap a horrified hand over my mouth. _Jesus, I didn't mean to say that out loud._

His eyes close and his face brightens for a moment as he chuckles breathily. "Eh heh…I feel like shit, thanks for noticing." He replies, coughing a little at the end of the sentence. Then he glances sideways at me and smiles. It looks heavy, like it weighs a million pounds on his face. His blue eyes freeze me in their gaze and his face is warm, kind, genuine.

There's a twitch in my hand. He squeezes it and lifts it slightly above the sheets before letting it fall back to rest.

My stomach explodes with butterflies, and I can feel a reckless heat building behind my cheeks. I quickly turn away before he sees me blush, grabbing the glass of water with my opposite hand as an excuse. When I turn back I can see his elbows drawing back under the sheet, his knees lifting and his shoulders hunching. He's got his tongue sticking out of his mouth like a little kid trying to concentrate. I immediately recognize the motions as a precursor to sitting up.

"Woah, woah!" I whip my palm out and hover it over his chest as a sign for him to stay put. "Not just yet. Here, have a drink." He makes a pouty face and releases my hand, beginning to reach up with his left arm, but wincing as his torn bicep flexes. Sucking in air over his teeth, he takes the glass and chases down the straw.

After a solid thirty seconds he passes it back to me and I return it to the nightstand. We sit in an awkward silence as the minute's creep by.

"So Doc., what's my prognosis?" His head rolls back towards me and he grins broadly, flashing bright white teeth. _He's a stud, this one._

My immediate instinct is to tell him I'm not a doctor, but he's a smart guy and I'm sure he's realized it himself. "Ahem… uh," I lean back in my chair and clear my throat. "Well, you've got a nasty graze on your right upper shoulder, a through-and-through smack in the middle of your other shoulder, and another pretty severe hole in your lower abdomen." I bob my head nervously, a bad habit, and continue, "You very nearly bled out. Took me an hour to scrub it off my floor."

His gaze doesn't leave my face, but his grin fades a little. "Sorry about that."

"Yeah well, you ruined my favorite pair of scrubs."

"Heh, I'll have to make it up to you somehow." He winks.

I roll my eyes up to the ceiling, unable to hold back my amused smile. _Geez_ , _this guy._

"Thanks."

"Huh?" I swing back down, a little surprised by his drastic change in tone. His blue eyes stab straight into me and catch me off guard, his face is a mask of icy seriousness.

"Thank you." He says, not blinking. His voice is clearer than it's been so far, and louder, with a strength that doesn't match the injured body laying prone in my bed. "Really. For saving my life."

I smile gently, and nod my head in gratitude. "Just doing my job." _Wow, that sounded really cool._ But honestly, it kind of is.

Slinky meows loudly and begins to stretch and knead the sheets. Nightwing blinks in surprise and cranes his neck at the cat as the sleepy fur-ball rises and pads his way across the bed, curling back up with his spine pressed against Nightwing's side. Slinky tucks his fat tail back underneath him and settles back to sleep. Nightwing stares down at him with a slightly lifted arm, looking confused.

"His name is Slinky." I say with a chuckle. "You should be thanking him, he kept you warm all night."

He stares down at the cat with a quizzical expression, blinking slowly.  
"Do you like cats?" I ask, a little puzzled by his reaction.  
"Never had one. Bats doesn't really get along with them."  
"He likes you. Doesn't usually warm up to people this fast." I gesture at the purring creature, and he meows happily on cue.  
Nightwing lets his arm fall around slinky, resting one hand on the back of his head and scratching his ear gently. A faint smile creeps across his lips.  
"Slinky, huh?" He says quietly. "He's cute."  
For a while, the only sound is the happy purring of my cat and the faint rattle of the buildings AC. Then Nightwing startles me by speaking suddenly, without looking up from Slinky.  
"I messed up." His voice is flat and stone cold.  
"Huh?"  
His head falls back on the pillow, his hand pauses between slinky ears, and his eyes swing up to the ceiling. He closes his eyes, and blows out a hot irritated breath.  
"I was just supposed to be checking in on one of the local gangs. Got a tip they were moving some weapons down by the docks. But, I slipped up, made a little too much noise and got spotted." He glances sideways at me, and his face is a perfect image of annoyance. "Couldn't dodge quick enough, and the rest is history."  
I do my best to look sympathetic. "Everybody has bad days sometimes."  
"Do yours end in you getting shot?"  
"No, I guess not."

"Man, this sucks! I just got back in town too. My luck is terrible."

I lean back in my chair and give him a scolding look. "Really? I'd say it's pretty good. You managed to time everything just right in my opinion. A couple minutes later and I don't know if anyone would have found you."

"Come on, just let me sulk." He rolls his head away from me and throws his good arm over his eyes in a dramatic gesture, but I can still see the corners of his mouth tweaked up in a teasing smile.

My gut is finally beginning to smooth out, my anxious nerves calming. Just being able to speak to him is helping me to confirm to myself that he's doing much better. He has such a quick wit, it's easy to forget how injured he actually is. He's speaking to me like we're sitting across the table from each other in a fast food joint.

I'll still be a nervous wreck until he's back at 100%, that's just how I am. But until then, I'm content to cluck around him like a mother hen.

It's later in the evening, and I forgot to eat lunch in my nervous watch over my patient, so by now I'm a little dizzy with hunger. His stomach too is beginning to rumble; he's trying to small talk his way over it by pretending it's not happening.

Retreating to the kitchen but still within earshot of the sarcastic hero, I whip up a sandwich for myself and a bowl of chicken noodle for him. Upon return, I help to prop him up on enough pillows to get him upright, apologizing profusely at every groan and wince. The movement spooks Slinky enough that he jumps off the bed and disappears indignantly around the corner.

Nightwing calls out to him as he bounds away. I smile, it's cute that they've gotten attached to each other so quickly.

I toss a towel across his lap, then hand him the bowl with a spoon already inside. I let him handle the spoon, figuring he wouldn't appreciate me trying to feed him like a baby. He nods at me appreciatively, takes the spoon out of the bowl, and pours the soup straight down his gullet with startling speed.

"Good lord! Take it easy or you'll make yourself sick!" I scold him and snatch the almost empty bowl away from him. It takes him a second to react so for a moment his hand hovers in air, supporting a phantom bowl. Then he blinks a few times and grins up at me sheepishly as he wipes broth from his chin. He seems to sink deeper into the pillows, and his eyelids droop low in post-meal stupor.

"I didn't realize I was that hungry." He mumbles, still smiling. "That really hit the spot, thanks."

I smile back, warmed from the inside by something other than hot soup. "It's alright to go back to sleep if you're feeling tired. Rest is good for you; I'll be right here when you wake up."

He glances sideways at me and raises one dark eyebrow. "You promise?" He says smoothly.

I lower myself down into the wooden chair that had been my home base for so many hours and lean forward to gently remove a few pillows from behind him, lowering him back into a horizontal position. He lets me, without any protest. Pulling the quilts back up over his bandaged chest, I lean in close. Our noses are only a few inches apart; I can feel his breath on my cheek.

"I promise." I whisper.

He smiles, but its heavy again. His eyes are almost closed.

"It's Dick…" The words are barely louder than a breath.

"Hmmm?"

"My name's… Dick…"

"I'm Julie."

"Nice…to meet you… Julie…"

And with that, he's out. His face is tilted away from me, eyelids lightly closed, breathing comfortably and regularly. I myself melt into my chair, strangely happier than I've been in weeks, while more exhausted at the same time. My mind is a swirling, giddy mess of words and images. I don't know whether to squeal like a little girl or go take a nap for the next twenty years.

There's a super hero asleep in my bed. And we're on a first name basis.

 _Ok. This might as well happen to me._


	5. Chapter 5

I pull the door shut with my foot and deposit my loaded grocery bag on the counter. "I'm hoooome!" I sing the words through the apartment, and get a similarly intoned reply.

"Welcome baaaaack." Dick calls from the bedroom, with a slightly teasing lilt to the words.

It's been two days since he fell into my life, and during that time he's been improving in rapid spurts, faster than anyone I've ever observed. Especially for someone with no IV, no medication, he's bouncing back like he's made of rubber. He slept most of the day yesterday, but woke up this morning with color on his cheeks and more spunk than a high school cheerleader. I'd only just slipped out for an hour or two to get some groceries and other supplies, making him promise me that he'd call me right away if he started feeling anything odd, anything at all. I'd been a nervous wreck the entire time I'd been away, fighting the urge to call home every ten minutes. It's a huge load off my chest to be within ten feet of him again.

I unload two of the flimsy plastic bags into the fridge and carry the third with me back to the bedroom, kicking off my trainers as I go.

He's propped up against four pillows, slightly sunken into the soft fabric. I like my pillows real squishy, so they aren't really that great as support, but I stuck a couch cushion back there that's a little more firm. The sheets are pulled halfway up his chest with both his arms resting on top, his more damaged one tucked against his stomach and the other laying across the keyboard of my laptop. Slinky is coiled in the empty space between his calves.

When I round the corner I hold up the bag and give it a demonstrative shake. Dick shimmies up a little on the bed and chuckles. His hair falls down into his eyes and he gives his head a shake to flick them aside.

"Ooooh goodies! What did you bring me?" He flashes me a big, wide, beauty-pageant smile.

I reach into the bag and pull out the first thing my fingers touch. "One T-shirt for you, one pair of sweats for you, a sling for you, more gauze for later…"

He reaches out with his good arm, catches the shirt and shakes it out so he can see the design. When he does, he looks up with a raised eyebrow. "Teenage mutant ninja turtles? Really?"

I raise my eyebrows right back. "It was on clearance, don't complain. Oh yeah, here are the Twinkies you asked for." Dick catches the seran-wrapped package with a motion so fast it almost blurs and holds it against his chest.

"Yessssssss…" He drops his head back and hisses out the words with the happiest expression I've seen on him yet. "I freakin love Twinkies." He whispers.

"Glad you feel that way. Pass me my laptop and sit up, I need to change your gauze." I swing the bag and what is left in it to the side and fold the shirt and sweats beside it. Dick hands me back my laptop but holds onto the Twinkies with an iron grip. I swear, he's like a big toddler.

With a soft hand on his back, I ease him up until he's sitting on the bed with his legs over the side, his back slightly hunched and his hands braced down against the mattress. As I pull the new supplies out of the plastic bag, Dick closes his eyes and breathes deeply, rocking forward slightly on the bed. His eyebrows draw together, and I can see the muscles of his jaw clench. He blows out a fast, tightlipped breath.

I can't let myself forget. Even if he seems to be improving, I can't let myself be fooled. If I've learned anything from nursing, it's that anything can go wrong at any time. He's definitely still hurting, and he can still easily bust a stitch or develop a clot. When he's smiling and laughing and demanding Twinkies, it's difficult to remember how hurt he actually is. He's got an excellent poker face, something I hate. I wish guys would let me know when they're hurting, not make me guess.

I turn back to Dick, still trying to breathe through everything. I'm sure those crappy improvised stitches I threw in him don't feel too good, but they do the job.

"Take a deep breath, and let me know when you're ready." I rest a hand on his upper back in reassurance. I can feel the heat coming off him, and a slight tremor under my fingers. They rise once, hold for a moment, then drop back down again.

"Ok," He says quietly, "I'm good to go."

I begin by unclipping the metal clasps holding the bandages around his shoulder tight. They fall away and seem to gather naturally around my wrist as I unwind. At the same time, Dick seemed to deflate slightly, his shoulders falling. It was as if the bandages were a patch keeping him from losing air. Each passing layer is stained with darker and darker shades of blood, the last entirely coated with a sticky black coagulation.

I jerk the gauze that's stuck to the wound away before Dick has time to register it. He bristles down to his toes and gasps, eyebrows flying up in a genuinely startled expression.

"Hooooooooooooo-wow that, that smarts. Oooooh, man that smarts." He says breathily.

"Sorry about that." I reply, even though I'm not certain he was really speaking to me. "Sit up straight for me and relax your arm as much as you can." I rest my right hand on the back of his ribcage, and my left on the top of his shoulder while he aligns his back and lays his hand across his thigh.

It's the first time I've been able to get a close look at the bullet wound with a level head. The entry point itself is obscured by congealed blood, and the surrounding skin is raised and angry looking. Splotchy deep purple bruising forms a halo two inches in diameter and hooks up over his shoulder and down under his arm. It looks gnarly, but not infected, and not actively bleeding. In short, it doesn't look half bad.

I reach across Dick and snag one of the antiseptic wipes I'd strategically left on the nightstand, returning to clean the wound and the skin around it of any remaining blood. Dick hisses at the contact, but I ignore him and keep working. Now that I can clearly see the hole, I'm feeling a little smug. My improvised stitches are holding firm and though the skin is aggravated, it isn't tearing or infected.

"Let me know if you feel any pain or sensitivity, alright?"

He nods rigidly, but doesn't speak.

I begin the next step of my inspection, brushing my fingers along the damaged muscle and pressing gently at certain intervals. Dick peeps in pain every time I poke the bruises, and clearly doesn't enjoy the prodding elsewhere. I spare him from any pressure on or adjacent to the stitches because I know that'll hurt a lot, and I don't want to unnecessarily pain him.

"Alright, well done. I'm finished. I'm going to go ahead and re-bandage you. If you need a moment to breathe, or you're feeling dizzy, or anything, let me know ok?"

"Roger that doctor Julie." A smile twitches across his face as he glances sideways at me with an amused expression.

"I'm a nurse, not a doctor."

"Does it really matter?"

"Doctors would say so."

He snorts, then gasps when I pull the bandages tight back around his shoulder. I raise a chastising eyebrow, but continue to tuck the gauze into his armpit, anchoring it with a claw hook.

The graze on his other arm barely requires my attention; it's already beginning to scab and the stiches are holding tightly.

"Ok, I'm going to move on to your abdomen here, so if you can raise your arms a little I'll go ahead and unwind you." I pull the end of the bandage roll out from where I had tucked it and wrap it a little around my hand like I'm rolling a garden hose. Dick squares his shoulders back and lifts his arms, holding his more injured arm up with the other. Moments later, the wrap is piled in a mound beside us on the bed.

The bullet wound looks much better than when I'd last seen it, but it's still nowhere near as healed as I'd like it to be. The stiches are pulling slightly and leaving angry trails in his skin. His upper abdominals are swollen and deeply bruised in a purple that blurs into green at the edges. I don't want to touch it, because I can see already that it's raised and I don't want to torture him by unnecessarily prodding it.

I can see his oblique's gently clenching as he breathes, his abdominals pulling inwards towards his spine in a soft rhythm. He's warm, but the slight hint of a fever seems to have gone away. It's taking every inch of me not to stare at his muscles. I have to keep a counter running in my head, making myself look away after ten seconds. I mean, the man is ripped. He looks like an anatomy model for christ's sake.

I feel my face warming up from the backside, and I have to turn away and clear my throat embarrassedly. "A-Ahem! Uhh, it looks like you're pulling the stitches a bit here. You haven't been moving around have you?"

"Pffft…" He droops his head at the question and avoids my questioning eyes. "Damn, you caught me. I did some push ups and a couple sit ups while you were out."

I reel back, startled by his honesty. "Are you serious?! Bed rest means you stay in bed! What were you thinking?" He shrugs his shoulders sheepishly and folds his fingers over each other in his lap. He won't look at me. _Christ, he's like a little kid._

"I don't like laying around doing nothing. It makes me antsy. I feel like I should be back out on the- agh!"

I realize that I've rewrapped the gauze around his abdomen much tighter than I'd meant to in my frustration, causing Dick to gasp and brace against the pain. I feel a little twinge of guilt, but I'm also annoyed at him so part of me feels like he deserves it. He doesn't say anything else until I've finished re-wrapping the bandages around the new gauze pads.

"I get that you don't like lying in bed all day, but you have to remember how seriously you were hurt. I barely managed to keep you alive, and you're still not out of the woods. It'll take you longer than two or three days to heal up. The more you move around, the longer it's going to take, so just chill out for a little while longer and let your body rest." I'm lecturing him more than any other patient I've ever had. Somehow, this guy just… He makes me worry.

Sighing in irritation, I gather up the sullied bandages from the bed and move towards the bathroom to throw them away. My arm catches on something, pulling me back. Surprised, I look over my shoulder to see Dick holding my wrist. He's looking down at his lap, gripping my hand with his bad arm. His brow is furrowed into an expression that looks more tired than anything else. Dick closes his eyes and lets his head drop a little.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I get it, I really do. I don't want you to think I'm not grateful because I am." He looks up, turning on the bed to face me. His eyes glimmer and swirl with a blend of sorrow and affection, light and dark blues twisting together. "I am alive right now because of what you've done for me, and there's really nothing that I can do to really pay you back for that."

Silence hangs heavy in the air as my words die in my throat, my own mind spinning with so many emotions I'm not sure how to interpret them. Why do I feel like a child on the playground again? What is it about this man that throws me for a loop?

He squeezes my wrist once again, then taps his pointer finger against the skin and lets his hand slide away. It falls limp into his lap, fingers curled inward like a dead spider.

"Yeah…" Dick hangs his head and his hair falls in front of his eyes, walling me off from their intense brilliance. It's strange, how much I notice their absence. One of his hands lifts, fingers hooking over his collarbone. He scratches the top layer of bandages absentmindedly but still won't look at me. His words are barely more than a whisper, spoken only to himself. "Something like that."

I slap the back of his head with the flat of my hand. He folds forward in surprise before jolting back upright with his own hands clasped across the back of his head and a shocked, flushed expression on his face.

"Wha-?!"

"That's your punishment for disobeying a nurse's orders!" I lean over near to him and waggle my finger teasingly in his face, tapping his nose for effect. Somehow I'm feeling invigorated and a little more powerful than before. He reels back on the mattress and turns bright red with an exasperated smile. "You better listen to me or there's more coming!" I tease, louder now.

Dick swats my hand away, laughing. "I believe you, I believe you!" He shakes his hair out of his eyes and smiles as he falls sideways on the bed. "Oww, eh heh heh."

I reach my hand out for him and he takes it after his laughter dies out. "Sit back up for me a second. I've got a shirt and a sling for you." He rocks to an upright position with one hand against his bandaged abdomen and wipes a few tears of laughter from his eyelashes.

I pick the chintzy t-shirt up from where it sits folded on the bed and hand it to him. "Get that on and then I'll help you with the sling."

Still chuckling to himself, Dick slides into the shirt, wincing slightly as he extends his damaged shoulder. Once it's on, he shoots me a thumbs up and a cheesy wink.

"Am I nerdy enough for you?"

"Har de har har. Slide your arm through here." I hold the sling out flat and Dick lets his arm fall into it. He looks a bit ridiculous in the garment, even though it's a large it's still pulling across his chest but is looser down around his thinner waist. He looks, actually pretty hot. If any of the male nurses at Gotham general looked like he does right now, I might have a problem. Dick is still giggling about the T-shirt as I close the Velcro straps around his shoulder and chest, securing his damaged arm and shoulder. "That should keep you from pulling any stitches there, but that doesn't mean you can go crazy. Here are your sweats, go ahead and change if you'd like to." With that, I move a few feet from the bedframe and turn my back to him so he can do what he has to do. I still don't know if he wears boxers or anything under his costume, and I'm not quite willing to find out. After a few moments of awkward shuffling silence, Dick clears his throat.

"You can turn around now." He says, and his voice has a definitive grin to it. I turn back just in time to see him ease himself back onto the bed, swinging his legs up onto the sheets. He raises his free arm and tucks it back behind his head, kicking one leg over the other and flashing his pearly whites at me. "It's safe to look." With the last statement, he winks.

"Shut up." I snort and brush him off, stooping to pick up the plastic bag and receipts' from the foot of the bed. "I didn't like the look of your stomach, so lay down and rest!" As I move out of the room I just catch a glimpse of him tearing open the package of twinkies with his teeth and one hand, looking not a little like some kind of caveman.

By the time I return from my journey to the restroom he's already stuffed one entire twinkie into his mouth and is twisting awkwardly under the sheets, trying to pick up my laptop from where I had set it on the floor without falling off the bed himself. I grab it just before he reaches it and drop it in his lap with a raised eyebrow. A slight pink rises to his cheeks and he shrugs guiltily.

"You can just ask if you need something you know."

"I guess I'm not used to doing that." Dick opens the laptop and shuffles back against the pillows to position the computer flat across his thighs. He drums his fingers on the keyboard and smiles a little.

I plop myself down on the end of the bed and stretch my shoulders out, folding one arm over the other. "Not used to it?"

"I live by myself, so usually if this kind of thing happens I just take care of it myself." He cocks his head and glances up at the ceiling, scratching the nape of his neck absentmindedly. "Don't think it's ever been this bad though. Most of the time it's just scrapes or sprains."

I chuckle and pull my legs up underneath me. "Maybe I should send you home with a goody bag."

"Hah! Really though, please do." Slinky jogs back into the room and hops up onto the bed. Dick reaches out and scratches the cat's head, and Slinky leans into it and purrs loudly. "Bat's is going to be pissed when he finds out about this." The young man closes his eyes and shudders faintly.

I have to admit, the thought of the Batman himself being angry at me isn't pleasant. "He won't be mad at me will he?" I ask, a little nervous. I can see the guy being upset that I didn't take his sidekick to the hospital, and instead decided to play doctor Frankenstein.

"Pffft, I doubt it. He's going to kick my ass but he'll probably give you a medal." Dick suddenly makes a horrified expression. "Shit, I even told you my real name. Christ, he's going to kill me."

I grin mischievously at him and tuck my feet up into a tight Indian pose, raising one finger to my lips. "I can keep a secret." I say with a wink. "If he asks me I'll say your name is Steve."

"Steve? Couldn't you give me a cooler name?"

"Fine, what's a cool name to you?"

"I don't know, like…like… crap. Of course, now I can't think of anything."

"Ah hah ha ha!"

Dick sticks his tongue out at me and scratches Slinky more aggressively. The fat cat flops over onto his back and kicks his legs up in the air in ecstasy.

"So…" Dick looks up. "What's Batman like?" I ask. I'm trying so hard to keep my tone from sounding nosy.

Dick's eyes orbit a full circle before he starts talking. "Aww jeez, where do I begin? He's bossy, headstrong, and waaaaay too serious all the time." He counts each point off on the fingers of his one good hand. "But, at the same time he's a good guy. He's always there when you need him, and he won't hesitate to tell you if what you're doing is wrong." Dick smiles, and it's warm and genuine. "I've always liked that about him. Bat's is a straightforward kind of guy. I don't have to worry about him lying to me. What he says is what he means."

"He sounds nice." I mumble, not quite meaning to say it aloud.

Dick doesn't seem to notice how quietly I'd spoken. "Yeah, he is I guess." He smiles again, bit with a hint of sadness this time. "I was looking forwards to seeing him when I got back to town. Guess I've got to wait a bit longer."

My heart aches for him, trapped in the home of a stranger, alone, uncertain and injured. I can't even begin to imagine how vulnerable he feels. Hoping to make him feel a little better, I give his raised knee a gentle pat and smile warmly at him.

"You still will. Just give it a little more time for you to heal up, and then I'll set you free!" I cast my hand up and away from his knee with a flourishing gesture.

He laughs, bright and crisp, and the smile is genuine again. Dick looks up at me with eyebrows cocked and a sly expression.

"I appreciate that you think you're keeping me here against my will." He swings an arm up and squares his fingers against his jawline in the shape of a faux gun. His dark eyebrows bounce again and his smile widens, icy blues drill into me. "You better watch out, I might not ever leave."

The rush of heat that floods my cheeks catches me off guard. I turn away, pretending to tuck my hair up into a bun, but I don't have a hair tie on me so when I let it go it falls back about my shoulders.

My reaction seems to amuse Dick, as he throws his head back and laughs heartily. "Maybe I will stick around, if you like me that much!"

I pop up off the bed and stick my tongue out at him. "Don't tease me. You rely on me for junk food, remember?"

He gasps dramatically and draws a hand over his forehead in a mock faint. "Oh merciful god, I am in debt to you." Through his fingers, I can see his glittering eyes peeking at me like a toddler who knows his teasing is working.

I pat the knee that is forming a small mountain under the covers and take a couple of hopping steps back toward the kitchen, shaking my loose hair back over my shoulders. My own stomach is beginning to growl, I can't even imagine how bad his must be. I did leave him home alone stranded in bed after all.

"You hungry for some real food, or are you just going to eat Twinkie's for the rest of your life?"

His head pops back up again and his eyes are sparkling like a child in a toy store. "You have more?" He blurts, then immediately turns a deep shade of red all the way to his ears.

I have to dive onto the couch to muffle the banshee screech of laughter that escapes from the depths of my chest. I laugh until I can't breathe, all while Dick yells embarrassed supplications at me from the bedroom.

I could get used to this, this dizzy feeling, this giddy feeling of happiness. The rosy heat that warms my cheeks creeps up into my brain, melting away all my worries and aches in a flurry of giddy tears and happy thoughts. I wouldn't mind if this lasted forever.

 _But that's_ _selfish._ _He's his own person, he get's to make his own decisions._

"N-never mind, we'll get by." I shut the fridge and dig in the pantry for a little bit. " I think there's some canned veggies in here."

"Oooooo-kaaaaay." Dick sings back.

I manage to scrape together a decent meal of leftovers and dry goods, and we eat sat together on the mattress with pillows propped behind us watching sitcoms on my laptop late into the evening.


	6. Chapter 6

I wake up slowly, roused by the Dick's slight motion under the sheets and the dainty weight of cat paws across my legs. Dick is still asleep, laying on his back with his head angled gently on the pillow, facing away from me. I can just see his long eyelashes and his lips, slightly parted as he breathes softly and deeply. My own arms are wrapped around his muscled forearm as I lay on my hip beside him but atop the sheets. From the low angle I have, I can see his bandages peeking out under the collar of his t-shirt.

Outside my window, a car horn blares. As gently as I can, I roll sideways and glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It reads 3 AM in flashing iridescent symbols. I blink a few times in the face of the too bright light, but it pries through my eyelids nonetheless.

Dick groans in his slumber, and as I look back at him his head rolls across the pillow and comes to rest facing me. I slide back down beside him and stare into that face. It's peaceful, but somehow still mature. He's hard and soft at the same time. The sharpness of his black hair and eyebrows and the line of his chin, fading into the easy curves of his eyes and neck, and the smooth way his chest rises and falls when he breathes. He's always looked to me like he was carved from marble, almost too perfect to be real. He's warm, and real in my arms. I don't want to ever get up, I just want to lay beside him forever.

Is it right for me to feel this way? I mean, he's a superhero. How could I hope to have anything more to do with his life? I've grown attached. Like he's a lost puppy or something.

It could be problematic.

There's a thud from somewhere outside of the bedroom, and it startles me for a moment. My immediate thought is that it's just Slinky, but I know the cat is sleeping between Dick's calves. I don't get up, but turn my ears to the doorway.

It could be my neighbors banging about, sounds do tend to echo through the walls here, or it could just be my fridge acting up again. It's probably nothing.

Probably nothing.

It comes again, louder this time, more defined. It almost sounds like a knock at the door.

Groggy and annoyed, I slip out from under Dick's arm and off the bed and move towards my living room. There's nothing of interest there, though I'd half expected to encounter some huge rat or something. The sound comes one more time and this time I easily recognize it. Someone is knocking at my front door. But what could anyone want at 3 O'clock in the morning? _Whatever,_ I'm too tired to fully comprehend the danger in opening the door to a stranger so early in the morning, and I've already got the deadbolt half off when the door flies open the rest of the way.

The door explodes inwards, the metal lock mechanism splintering and pinging off into the darkness, and huge forms blast in and slam into me, knocking me off my feet. I fall into the couch and smack my head on the arm with a startled scream. Lights and shapes pop and spin in my head, and the light from the hallway blinds me to anything more.

The flood of shadows rushes past me like a raging river into the darkness of my small apartment. I can't distinguish one human form from the next, but as one passes my scattered brain hones in on a long, glinting metal shape. A gun.

I hear the door slam shut, and seconds later I'm hoisted by the back of my shirt. Terror grips my muscles and I start to fight, to squirm, to do something. The force drags me around to the other side of the couch and holds me there while as the other shadows blur around us. I flail my legs and arms in a frantic attempt to hit whomever is restraining me, but he's behind me and I can't reach him.

All I can think of is Dick. Are these people here for him? Do they want to hurt him? I'm yelling for him, trying to warn him, but some part of me remembers the conversation we'd had the other night, about his name.

"Steve! Steve run away!" I scream as loud as I can. "GET UP AND RUN- ah!" The arm releases my shirt and instead takes a fistful of my hair. My head yanks back and stinging tears spring to my eyes. By now, they've adjusted as much as they will in the darkness. The hand turns my face, and I finally catch sight of my captor. He's wearing swat gear, garbed all in black with a mask, helmet, and bullet proof vest. There's a semiautomatic rifle slung on a strap across his chest. The other shapes come into focus, and they all seem to be wearing the same thing.

He shakes me, and my hands shoot up to take the pressure off my scalp.

"Who is the person in the bedroom?" The voice chills every nerve in my body. It sounds modulated, way too deep and garbled to be real. It sounds like a monster in my ear.

"H-He's my boyfriend! His name is Steve! Please don't hurt him, please! Don't hurt him!" A tiny part of me is freaking out by saying he's my boyfriend, but it's a believable story, and it's all I've got.

There's a slam in the other room, and I hear Slinky hiss and Dick's groggy voice. Then another thud and some angry shouting.

"Please! Please don't hurt him!" I'm begging like a child terrified for not only my life, but his. These people don't seem to have any qualms about killing.

Another swatted up goon shoves Dick around the corner with a fistful of his t-shirt. He stumbles and trips, blinking and squinting in the darkness. His expression is confused, startled, maybe even scared. "Julie, what's going on?" He says in a meek voice. He blinks at me and his eyes are wide, but something in them is the same as always. I can see his cogs turning from here. He's planning, thinking the situation through.

The goon gives him one last push and he loses his balance and tips forwards. With one arm trapped in that damn sling, he has a hard time catching himself. His knee's hit the floor and I dive to cushion his torso. As I prop him upright his eyes flash back for a split second, the deep blue turning icy cold before sliding back into the pretend shock.

"What do you people want? Why are you in our apartment?" He shouts at the men as he throws his arm around me, playing the part of a protective boyfriend. I let him, and bury my face against his chest. I have to admit it's comforting to be pressed against him. In all my years as a nurse I've never been in a situation like this. Every synapse in my brain is frozen with fear, I can't think straight, I feel cold and hot and exhausted and agitated at the same time. All I can do is repeat the same mantra over and over in my head. _He's a superhero, he can save us. He can save us._

Dick's voice chokes off, and I look up to see him staring down the barrel of a rifle. I want to scream, to slap it away from him, but I'm frozen in fear, every muscle locked.

"Who are you?" The owner of the gun asks.

Dick blinks and swallows thickly. "Ah, um… I'm Steve Michelson." He stammers.

"How did you get those injuries?"

 _Oh god._ I feel like I'm going to vomit.

Dick blinks again, and looks at me for a moment. "I got, err, mugged two weeks ago. My girlfriend is a nurse so she's been taking care of me."

"Prove it."

"Eh?"

"We're looking for someone, so prove that you are who you say you are."

My innards feel like they've dropped into a bucket of ice. They are looking for him, how are we going to convince them that he's not who they want? I stretch my neck slowly in an attempt to get a peripheral view of my phone. No good. It's off the hook.

Dick think's fast. "All my ID's were in my wallet when it got stolen, I- I don't have anything!" He flick's his eyes around in a calculated manner but he can't hide the fleeting glint of panic that lights them up.

"He's my boyfriend I swear! I can show you my ID if you want, please!" I raise my arm to point at my purse that is sitting on the counter, but before I can carry out the motion the butt of a gun slams into my temple.

I go down hard. Sounds blur and smear through my head. I can hear Dick yelling but I can't tell what he's saying. There's a pressure on the back and sides of my head and after the spinning slows I come to the realization that that pressure is Dick's hand holding me against his chest. His hand is shaking, and his heartbeat pounds like a war drum through his ribcage and reverberates through my skull. The world around me is still a kaleidoscope of dark colors, but somehow his face is perfectly clear to me, blue eyes piercing the darkness.

"If you want money take it but we're not who you're looking for!" The unadulterated anger in his voice startles me. He's lost his cool, his mask has slipped.

Glass shatters somewhere in the apartment. They're searching for something, but I don't know what. _Are they looking for his costume?_ At this point I can assume that they are the same people who shot him in the first place, back to finish the job they started. But how did they find him? Did they follow me? Have they been watching?

My own heart is beating like a jackhammer. I can't remember if I took the trash out, with all the bloody bandages and scraps of his costume. If they find that, we're fucked.

For around five minutes, we kneel on the rug by the couch with three guns pointed at us while the team ransacks my home. They pull drawers of their tracks and dump their contents out onto the floor, in the other room I can hear them flipping my mattress and tearing apart the sheets. By now, I've managed to count approximately ten men in full tactical gear. They're barely distinguishable from each other, with no skin exposed and their faces obscured by masks and goggles. The only differences I've managed to pick up are of height and girth. The three men pointing their weapons at us are the biggest of the group, and are positively monolithic standing above us.

I don't realize that I'm shaking until Dick grabs my hand and it's a rock of stillness and calm. He squeezes it reassuringly, but it does little to calm my nerves.

When a smaller man returns from the bathroom moments later with a few dark scraps of cloth in his fist, my worst fears are confirmed.

His gun swings from its strap as he holds up the ragged garment in both hands like a flag. Stretched across it is that familiar blue symbol. The symbol of the Nightwing.

Dick stiffens beside me, and now it's me who's squeezing his hand.

The biggest man, standing in front of Dick reaches up and scratches the back of his neck, tapping his gun.

"Steve, huh?"


	7. Chapter 7

This is bad. This is really, really, bad.

They figured it out, they know who he is.

They're going to take him. They're going to kill me. They're going to kill _him._

The intruders filter back from all corners of my apartment and circle around us like vultures. Every animal instinct in my body is shooting off alarms and bells. I want to run, I want to do anything but sit here. Each shape seemed to warp and grow in my petrified gaze. I hear a jingle, and one of them makes a motion with his hand that I don't understand.

In the seconds that follow, Dick and I are torn from each other. He flies out of my view as I'm thrown to the carpet and pinned by a hard boot in my back. My hands claw in empty air and I scream in terror and anger, but lose my breath when the boot jams harder into my ribs. I hear Dick shout and curse, but I can't see him. I'm pinned facing the opposite direction.

There's a scuffling sound, a thud and more cursing, and then…

WHAM!

The sound of a body hitting the ground horrifies me for a second before I realize that it's way too heavy to have been Dick. I squirm under the boot in a desperate attempt to see what is happening. I manage to twist my neck enough to peer back over my shoulder.

The sight is something that simultaneously exhilarates and terrifies me.

Dick flies through the air with the grace and speed of an experienced acrobat, flipping and leaping aside from each thrown punch and lunge. He rolls to a squat and kicks out three pairs of legs before catching the barrel of a flailed gun, jamming the man in the gut and flipping him over his shoulder into my radiator. From that position he leaps up and throws a roundhouse kick that takes down two more men. He's mowing them down with seemingly no resistance from the goons. They seem to have forgotten how to use their guns at all and are just throwing themselves at him.

He's amazing, like a flitting bird. Inspiring to watch.

But, Dick is still at a disadvantage. That sling is keeping him down to one arm, and he's showing signs of fatigue already. It's likely he's dizzy from lack of blood, and from the sudden burst of movement after laying in bed for a week. And it isn't long before those disadvantages take him down.

One of the goons, a big guy, ducks his swinging kick and lashes out with splayed fingers. Dick jumps back. Not quick enough. The man's finger just catches the strap of Dick's sling and yanks him sideways, throwing him off balance. His free arm shoots back with a primed fist, but it's caught and nullified. Before he can move away the assailant takes Dick by the throat and lifts him off the ground. His free hand flies to his neck and claws desperately at the thick fingers choking him.

"Leggo- agh!" The gloved hand tightens like a vice and he loses his breath to speak.

"Stop it! Let him go!" I'm screaming but no one seems to be listening to me. The boot in my back is a constant pressure as I try to rotate myself around it and help.

Dick's legs are kicking in open space as he desperately tries hold his weight with his arm instead of his neck. He swings one leg up at a time, kicking his captor about the ribs and chest as hard as he can. Each impact seems like a swat of a child to the big man. The big man lifts him even higher, with an unimpressed expression. He brings their faces closer and pushes Dick's head to the side with his thumb, peering at him like a jeweler who's appraising some rare gem.

"He certainly looks like the guy." The man taps the safety of his gun in contemplation. Then, he reaches out, hooks his pinky under the hem of Dick's shirt and lifts it to reveal my improvised bandage job. My throat goes dry at the red splotch that is reforming at the center of the gauze pad. "And this doesn't look like a hospital job to me." He withdraws his hand and the shirt falls.

Dick gasps and gurgles out a furious sound, but the words are indistinguishable. The thug who's jackboot is pressing between my shoulder blades grunts, "What'd he say?"

"Fuck you." Comes the gasped reply from the young hero.

The remark is wholly ignored. "He's gonna be a pain to take like this." The big man says, turning towards another standing beside him. The goon's Dick had taken down have by now picked themselves up and are rubbing their necks and sore limbs. Some are supporting their dazed comrades by the arms and shoulders. The other thug taps his wrist, mimicking a watch.

The big man sighs and looks back at Dick, thrashing furiously with murder in his eyes. His arm cocks back, then rockets forward and slams Dick's skull against the wall.

Suddenly I can't breathe. I'm cold all over, like my entire body has been dipped in a bath of ice. My mind is numb. I'm not feeling. I'm not thinking.

Drywall cracks, his entire body spasms and goes limp, his arm swinging down at his side. The big guy pulls Dick's head out of the hole in the wall and holds him for a moment, just looking at him. Chunks of plaster cling to his hair and sprinkle to the floor like snow. Blood has already started to trickle down the bridge of his nose, his chin is angled towards the ceiling, still hoisted by his throat. A thick drop splits from the rest and runs down his cheek, falling to the floor in slow motion. The man blinks a few times, then turns towards me and releases his fist. Dick falls like a corpse, hitting the ground like he's made of jelly, his head bouncing off my floor, hand falling open beside him.

"No!" The word rips itself from my throat before I can stop it. I can taste the salt of the tears coating my cheeks. I'm dizzy with the number of overlapping emotions I'm feeling, there isn't enough room in my head for all the things I'm thinking. The pressure on my spine suddenly lifts enough for me to slither out from beneath in and I fling myself across the short gap between Dick and me.

I vaguely hear a curse, and someone apologizing but the sounds go in one ear and out the other. I have much more important things to be worried about.

Dick's head falls heavily into the hollow between my thighs, not responding to the violent shaking I'm giving him. His shoulders and hips are twisted at an awkward angle, his one free arm thrown out in front of him with his palm open to the sky. I'm screaming something but I don't know what. The sound is overloading my ears, I could still be calling him by that stupid fake name for all I know. I can feel an uncomfortable wetness growing against my leg and even though I'm trying so hard to pretend I don't know what it is I do. Oh god, I don't want to know what it is.

Someone grabs me from behind and hauls me away. Dick's head slides out of my lap and hits the floor with a horrifying thud. I release a guttural, animalistic scream, angrier than I've ever been before. My arms are going everywhere, I'm bucking like a fish out of water just trying to break away from whoever is holding me. I have to get back to him. I have to get back to Dick. My entire being is focused solely on that one thing.

"Shit, the bitch's gone crazy."

"Forget it, we only need him anyways. Go ahead and shoot her."

I like to think I'm a selfless person. After years of working in a hospital, danger and fear and sadness are no strangers to me. I always believed that I would do anything to save the life of another person, that I wouldn't stand by while another was hurt.

But when I hear those words something happens to me. I lock up. Every muscle turns to stone, my breath dies in my throat, all sound fades out to a muffled garble of distant noise. I'm frozen, petrified in sheer terror.

The hand on my shoulder throws me down onto my side, and before I have the time or energy to react, the barrel of a rifle swings to rest between my eyes. I stare into it, numb.

"Stop…it…" Dick's voice is barely audible, but it brings me back to earth in less than a second. I can hear that gurgle at the back of his throat characteristic of someone with a collapsed lung, choking on their own blood. My heart pounds against my ribcage, shaking my body and bringing a tremor to my vision. I can't breathe, can't think.

His hand slides across the carpet, woozy and shaking, two fingers raised slightly higher than the rest. His head rolls onto his temple, hair parting just enough for our eyes to meet through the haze of darkness.

 _Oh god._ He's terrified.

I reach my own hand out towards Dick, forgetting for a moment about the gun barrel pointed at my head. He's so close. So close but I still can't do anything!

I'm thrown to the ground one more time, torn away from Dick's outstretched hand with my own still reaching to the ceiling. I scream out in rage and terror, but before I can react physically, something terrible happens.

The big man's leg swings back, then rockets into Dick's gut. His entire body shudders with the impact, and he lets out a guttural cry of pain, before vomiting a mouthful of blood on my area rug, then falling still once again.

I go feral.

I'm on top of the big guy before he knows what's happening. I'm punching, scratching, clawing, just going crazy and trying to do as much damage as possible before he can reach his gun. He ducks and swats at me, trying to protect his face. It's not long before someone else hauls me back by my hair but I don't stop. I can't stop. I'm fueled by rage, I'm a whirling ball of teeth and fingernails and all I care about is hurting someone.

He hurt my friend. So I want to hurt him.

My head jerks back and my scalp screams in pain as the other guy yanks on the fistful he has of my hair. I can't see through the tears, the pain is almost unbearable. I haven't done nearly enough damage on the big guy to be satisfied, but I'm losing my grip. I go with the force and release whom I'd been beating on to twist and leap onto whoever's got my hair. The guy isn't expecting it, I manage to land a solid right cross to his jaw before he can even get his gun up. The weight of my body topples him and we both hit the ground with an earth shattering thud. There's a part of me that knows I should be thinking of a plan, some way to get us out of this situation, but right now I don't care about anything. I've been reduced to my lowest common denominator. There's nothing left in me but fury and adrenaline.

I land three more solid punches before a gun goes off. My right forearm bursts into flames but I don't let up, channeling every molecule of adrenaline, every iota of pain and rage into an earsplitting, throat rasping war cry. A boot slams into my temple and the world bursts into a spinning blur of black and white spots, but as I go down I drag my fingernails across my victims face.

Everything is spinning. I'm dizzy and nauseous and my limbs feel like they're made of lead. I can't move. I can't breathe.

It hurts.

Where is Dick? I can't see him, but my head weighs too much for me to turn it.

I'm so tired, so tired. Maybe if I just go to sleep I'll wake up and it will be over. Maybe this is just a bad dream.

I can hear voices but they're garbled, barely distinguishable. My muddled brain can only catch every other word.

"Face…bleeding…crazy…get…kill…girl…"

 _Oh…This is it. They're going to kill me._ My instincts are screaming at me to move, to fight, do something to preserve myself, but I'm just so tired. My body isn't listening to me, it feels like I'm trapped inside of a stone statue.

A precise pressure is applied to the back of my head. It's cold, round, I know it's a gun.

I'm numb. There's nothing I can do but lay there and wait to die.

The explosion comes, but it's not the one I was expecting. Glass shatters into the room, twinkling shards blasting through the darkness like loose sparks. The sliver of my vision that's left is filled with shimmering light, and then, suddenly, a dark shape that sweeps in from the shadows.

Gunfire rips the air. There is shouting, the impact of bodies hitting the ground reverberating through the floor and into my prone body. The dark shape morphs, stands up, and two distinct shapes poke up on each side of what seems to be it's head.

Batman rolls his shoulders and slams one fist against the palm of his other hand.

"Next."


	8. Chapter 8

It's dark, so dark. It feels like there's someone inside my head, pounding and chiseling away, threatening to bust out of my skull from the inside. It throbs, it hurts!

Suddenly I'm awake. There's no gradient to my consciousness, it's just snap and everything screams back into focus way too fast. It makes me nauseous, and immediately every muscle in my body springs in on itself and I lurch up to a seated position, my hands flying out in front of me to fight off some unseen enemy. I immediately regret the motion as every muscle in my body throbs at once, doubling me over. My arm burns and prickles strangely. When I clutch it, I find tight, precisely wrapped bandages. My head throbs again, and my hands fly up to my forehead and find a tight wrap of gauze there instead of the blood crusted skin I was expecting.

 _Who…?_

It takes me longer than it should to realize I'm not in my apartment. In fact, it looks like I'm nowhere at all. It's so dark I can barely see my hand just a few inches in front of my face. I lower my hands from the empty air they hang in and let them fold into my lap. I can hear a distant echo of my own breathing, and a few clicking and bleeping noises from a far-away computer. The air is cold, clammy feeling against my skin. It feels like someone has spritzed me with water.

Suddenly, a single thought barrels to the front of my mind.

Dick.

Where is he? Is he alive? I have to find him, I have to help him! I rock on the bed, swinging my legs up and over the side of the mattress.

"How are you feeling?"

The voice seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I just about jump out of my skin, and draw in an enormous gasp of shock, frozen awkwardly halfway off the medical bed. As my eyes continue to adjust in the dark I can begin to determine a large form beside the bed I'm sitting on.

Batman sits on the leading edge of a metal folding chair with his elbows perched on his knees and his head low behind his knitted fingers. His dark eyes are shadowed by the overhead hanging light, but even so, I can feel their gaze on me.

"Ah, umm." My hands float up to my face and I realize that the reason my cheek feels so stiff is because there's a gauze bandage taped to it.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Errr." I close my fingers over my eyes nervously. "Should I?" I blurt out.

"It depends."

"I-I know I'm not at home, but I can't say much more than that."

There's a grunt, but it has an air of approval to it. Silence presses in on me, making the hair on the back of my neck prickle. I'm keenly aware of how awkward I look, sitting on the side of the medical bed with my legs dangling like a child. I'm also feeling incredibly vulnerable. I have no idea where I am, I'm injured, and I don't think Batman has made up his mind about whether he likes me or not yet.

"Thank you."

"Eh?"

"For his sake." Batman nods his head to something past me in the dark, and I follow the gesture with my eyes, swiveling on the bed.

Around five feet away, illuminated under a pale yellow standing light and the blue glow from a multitude of monitors displaying medical charts and graphs is another medical bed. Laying in the bed, with the sheets pulled up high over his chest and an oxygen mask secured over his nose and mouth, is Dick.

I stare for what feels like forever, filled with so many different emotions I'm not sure how to process them, until my vision is blurred into obscurity by the tears welling up in them. How did I not see him before? My head pulses, the concussion reminding me why. A million thoughts are blasting through my mind. I want to jump up and run to him but I'm sure Batman wouldn't appreciate me sniffling and sniveling all over his sidekick. I want to call out to him and my mouth is halfway open before I realize that might not be the best idea.

Dick himself had been a little worried about how Batman would react if he found out he'd given me his real name. I don't want to give Batman any reason to be upset with me. But even so… He looks…

He looks awful. The dim light has turned his skin sallow and throws terrible shadows around his eyes, hollowing them and sinking them back. He looks thinner than I remember, smaller even. One arm is still in the sling, the other resting atop the tightly tucked blanket with a myriad of tubes protruding from it, many of which are dark with blood. It makes me feel sick looking at him. I feel like I might actually vomit at all the medical "worst case scenarios" that are popping up in my mind.

It takes way to long for my sluggish brain to grind out any kind of response to the situation. I blurt stupidly, "St-Steve…"

If I could have seen Batman's eyebrows, I would have guessed they raised. "Steve?" He repeats flatly. I turn back towards the larger man with my mouth hanging open, expecting to have to explain myself to him. I'm more than a little surprised to see an amused smile on the superhero's face.

 _All right, he must not be in as bad a shape as I thought if Batman can smile like this._

"You can drop it, I know he told you his name. "

The more I hear it, the smoother and softer his voice sounds to me. It's almost as if as I'm relaxing he is as well. That said, I still catch myself flinching when he leans back in the chair, straightening his spine and letting his hands slide loosely between his thighs. He's still smiling, but it seems to be tainted with an air of worry and he isn't looking at me, but over at Dick. "You wouldn't be here if I hadn't already decided you were safe."

"I assume you know who I am as well then?" I surprise myself with the strong, cool voice that leaves me. On the inside, I'm on the verge of having two completely different panic attacks, one because the Batman himself is sitting here having a conversation with me, and the other because he may or may not ever let me leave.

"Julie Matthew's, senior ER nurse at Gotham general hospital. You're 28 years old, born in Chicago to parents Maureen and Bob, moved to Gotham when you were 19 to attend medical school. You have a master's degree in nursing. You've lived in the same apartment the entire time you've lived here, you always pay your rent early, you have one cat, you're allergic to petunias and when you were three years old you broke your left arm." Batman replies simply, speaking as if he's reading off a list even though he's making direct eye contact with me. He pauses for a moment, then points to my bandaged arm and adds, "That's a deep tissue wound, but your bone and arteries are fine."

"Oh…Thank you…"?

Another grunt.

I reach up to touch my shoulder, and I'm a little surprised by the quality job he's done. The bandages are tight and well secured, but not so much that they impede circulation. I can't say I'm not impressed. Though, I guess I should really be, I'm sure he's had lots of experience with rescue medicine given his "profession". Actually, can I even call it a profession? Maybe a hobby?

*Cough*Cough* "Ahhhh, shit that hurt…"

My heart stops at the sound of the familiar voice. I know that voice. It's been teasing and harassing me for almost a week now. I launch myself off the gurney and move to run towards it, but before my feet have even touched the ground, Batman has flown past me, black cape billowing out behind him and blocking my view. I blow through the fabric seconds later, ignoring the dizzying pulsing in my head and chest from finally being upright.

Dick has pushed the thin blanket aside, revealing a heavily bandaged chest dotted with leads and wires and more splotches of blood than I'm comfortable with. Wheezing heavily, he's already begun to curl up onto his elbows, fumbling at the oxygen mask with shaking fingers. He begins coughing again, his entire body shaking with each gasping hack. The monitors and devices around him erupt in a chorus of bleep and alarms.

Batman and I are both at his side in seconds, pushing him down onto the medical bed again. Batman's hand closes over Dick's, gently pressing the mask back down over his nose and mouth. Dick makes an odd face, then blinks in recognition. His good arm swings out, and Batman catches it, squeezing it in a firm handshake. Dick nods his head and smiles weakly as his head falls softly against the pillow. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply as his gauze-covered chest rises and falls fully. His face is stuck in an odd expression, appearing relaxed but tense at the same time, as if he's exerting energy to keep it still. After a moment more, Batman takes Dick's hand away from the mask and deposits it at his side, leaving his own-gloved hand atop his ex-sidekick's.

It takes Dick a few minutes to catch his breath enough to speak again, and when he does, his voice is hoarse and wavering. His tired face breaks into a happy grin and he glances towards me. "Good to see you again, Julie." His eyes slide closed as he coughs again, instinctively raising a fist to his lips. His fingers brush against the plastic mask, and his hand hovers there awkwardly for a moment before Batman pushes is back down again.

"It's good to see you too." My words sound choked and squeaky escaping from my throat. My face feels hot and itchy, and my eyes are burning. I know I'm crying, and for some reason it makes me feel self-conscious. It's stupid, and a part of me knows it, but I don't want to cry in front of the Batman. It feels lame.

As I look down at Dick's damaged body, my guts twist and knot against each other. It's killing me to see him like this. I want to throw myself on top of him, just to hug him and never let him go. But, unfortunately there are a few reasons why I can't do that. Not the least of which being that I'd probably crush his already badly damaged lungs if I did.

At the very least, I want to touch him, if only to prove to myself that I'm not imagining him here, like a fever dream. My hands are folded in front of me, and my fingers begin to move on their own, twitching, reaching out towards Dick's hand where it lays atop the thin sheets.

Perhaps he saw the shy flicker, or perhaps he simply felt he needed to comfort me. Either way, before my hand has made up its mind if it wanted to really move or not, Dick suddenly reaches out and takes hold of my palm. He squeezes tightly and pulls me a little closer to the bedside as I stare down in surprise.

Dick is smiling again, but this time his eyebrows are tilted sadly, his face as sympathetic as it is haggard. "Don't cry." He says with a guilty twitch of his eyes. He squeezes my hand again, pressing his fingers against the back of my hand.

I can't hold back the embarrassed laugh that bursts out of me, an odd, squawking noise. Giving in to the rush of relief and sadness and exhaustion, I press my free hand against my eyes as fat tears roll down my cheeks. My shoulders are shaking, and all I can do is gasp as the sobs roll through me and the tears come fast and hot. Dick's hand around mine feels like the only thing that is keeping me from floating into oblivion. He's rooting me in reality, helping me to hold onto the very last drop of my sanity.

He's doing it again, saving my ass when he's the one in bigger trouble. Back at my apartment, he protected me even though he could barely stand up. He fought for me, knowing it would only result in more pain for him. Even now when he's breathing through a damn tube, he's worried about me.

All that I can do is squeeze his hand back, and hope that I'm able to communicate everything that I feel, and how grateful I am.

Dick's thumb rubs in small, soothing circles on the back of my hand. I rub my eyes clear of the moisture and glance back down, sharply aware of everyone's eyes on me. Batman is still standing beside me, his arms folded across his chest, watching me out of the corner of his eyes. Dick's smile has faded into a pained look of sympathy.

"Julie, listen…" He starts slowly.

I sniffle, drag my hand away from my face, pulling at my eyelid.

The smile flashes back across his face again, now looking pinched, and something else I can't quite place. Is it…embarrassment?

"I- " Dick starts again, then stops, swallowing and clearing his throat with a dry grunt. "I want to apologize, for getting you dragged into everything. I should have… I don't even know." He closes his eyes and furrows his brows into a frustrated frown. "What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry."

The tears are back in seconds, and I'm suddenly sobbing again. I'm not even really sure why. Through the distortion I can just make out a somewhat startled expression on Dick's face.

"Ah, uh-"

"I'm just so happy that you're alright!" I blurt out between my hysterical gasping. If I didn't know better, I might have said I even heard a little chuckle come from Batman standing next to me.

Dick makes a strange coughing noise, and I realize a moment later that it's as close as he can get to laughing at the moment. The surprise slides back into a warm smile, and it almost seems as if there is a slight pink flush returning to his tired cheeks.

Dick closes his eyes again, and his hand squeezes tightly around mine once more. "Me too." He says softly. "I'm glad too."

His eyes open, and I'm momentarily caught off guard. How is it that even under the direst of circumstances, those eyes are always the same?

"You saved my ass Jules." Dick says. "You fought back in a situation where even I couldn't. You were…" He pauses, and the smile slides, changing into that sly grin I saw so many times in the last week.

"You were pretty damn cool."

I blink at him.

Suddenly, there is a pressure on my arm and on the small of my back that wasn't there just a moment before. I blink again and realize that Batman is much closer than I remember. He's practically holding me up. When did that happen?

"Julie?"

I stop staring at Batman and swing my gaze back down to Dick. He looks very concerned all of a sudden, shifted up onto his elbows with one arm stretched out, holding my hand by the wrist. My hand looks like a dead fish in his grip, pale and clammy. When did _that_ happen?

"Huh?" The word falls out of my mouth like a rock.

"She can't stay here. She's going to need a real doctor." Batman's gruff voice comes from over my shoulder. The grip on my back adjusts, sliding up between my shoulder blades. Part of me wants to shrug him off, but I'm suddenly feeling very tired.

"What?" I say again, feeling out of the loop.

Dick is still staring at me with his eyebrows furrowed together. "Julie, are you alright?"

I blink at him. Once, twice. For some reason, I can't get my eyes to focus on him. It almost seems as if I'm looking at him through a dirty window. When did he get so blurry? "I'm perfectly fine." I try to say, but the words emerge stretched out and heavy, like taffy being pulled from a mixer. The thoughts in my head feel even slower.

"Julie? Hey, Julie!"

I can feel the pressure on my wrist that I know is Dick squeezing it worriedly, but his voice sounds as if it is coming to me through miles of water. Suddenly, my head is pounding, pulsing, from the inside out. I try to raise the hand that Dick is holding to my head and immediately my knees buckle out.

Batman, or I can only guess it's Batman, doesn't miss a beat. I feel myself lifted off my unreliable legs and cradled like a child. A very small part of me registers embarrassment, but the rest of me is entirely too tired to care. I can hear my name again, more than once, as well as garbed snippets of a conversation I am no longer a part of. I can barely tell the difference between Dick's voice and Batman's anymore.

"—wrong, is she alright?"

"—concussion and has lost a lot of blood—go to the hospital—"

"—promise—take care of her—"

My heavy lids fall shut, and when I have the energy to pry them open again I seem to be in a vehicle. I can feel and hear the rumble of asphalt beneath tires, and the pressure of a belt across my chest and lap. Bright lights flash and blur through the windows and the engine growls as momentum presses me down into the seat. I try to move, to lift my head, to do anything, but all my muscles feel like they are made of pudding. I simply can't get any of them to obey me. That tiny flare of frustration registers again. I want to look around, I want to see where Dick is.

I wanted to talk more. I wanted to see him more.

A hand squeezes my dead shoulder. I guess that it belongs to Batman.

My eyelids slide shut again, but this time it feels as if my body is pulled deep into a heavy bog. It is thick, and dark, and heavy, and it feels like I stay there for a long time.


End file.
